From: Mark Ward Donaldson <??????????????????????????>
Subject: New Subscription

Dear Steve:

Thank you ever so much for adding me to your list. It is really going to
be an asset to me...I've learned so much even from my first mailing.
I've only been smoking for 2 years, and already am learning some
mistakes I have made, and ways I can improve on it.

In your most recent mailing, there was some discussion concerning
shaving (what that has to do with pipe-smoking is beyond me...) but it
raised a question for me. During the winter I grow a beard, but shave it
in the summer. In Coastal Carolina (Wilmington, NC) it simply gets too
hot for it. So I don't worry about it in the winter. (I use an
electric). But in the summer, I'm really looking for a better
alternative. I love the closeness of a blade (I have a baby face), but
after two times I really tear my face up terrible. Is there something
I'm doing wrong, and is there ANY way I can use a blade that any one
knows about where I don't have to perform a blood scarifice?

Ever since my childhood, I've loved the aroma of a pipe. I just figured
everyone did. I am now discovering the hard way that is not the case.
Case in point: I was washing my clothes at the laundromat about a month
ago. Whilst my clothes were in the rinse cycle I was reading some
magazine enjoying my pipe I was just thinking just how good the aroma
was, when just then, in the back I heard a couple of fat yahoo redneck
women who had been on a kvetching tear for about 30 minutes (it was
really starting to get on my nerves, actually) said, not to me, but just
loud enough where I could hear her, "...and I wish that man would put
out that damn pipe! It's making me sick to my stomach...all my clothes
are gonna smell like smoke...yada, yada, yada..." That really made me
mad, because I pride myself on being considerate. I didn't say
anything...(I'm not a confrontational fellow, besides what good would it
accomplish?) I found this very ironic, since I haven't noticed my pipe
smell ever getting into my clothes (not to say it hasn't, it's just that
I've never noticed it...it's not like stale cigarette smoke -- the
WORST!) Is this a common occurrence? What was funny about the whole
thing is that I had just been thinking just how good this blend was! Has
this happened to anyone else? Suggestions? 

BTW, LOVED the comments about Orson Welles. I'm a radio announcer by
profession, and have always ADORED his voice...and I think Citizen Kane
is one of the best films ever made!!

Love your service!

Smoke in peace!

Mark Ward Donaldson
??????????????????????????

P.S.: I hope this submission isn't too long...I apologize if it is...I'm
new at this...

[Not too long at all, Mark. Thanks! The shaving topic got started a
couple of issues ago as a side comment about straight razors, and the
membership has been lathered up about it ever since. Like I said, we
cover all the finer pleasures of life here. -S.]


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