CALL TO ACTION - Your Help Urgently Needed
Proposed Bill to Increase Pipe Tobacco Tax by 775%
I hate to say it but I saw this coming. In an effort to side step the high Roll Your Own taxes brought on the SCHIP bill, RYO manufacturers have slightly changed the cut of their tobacco and are now selling it as pipe tobacco. The result, another proposed bill to increase the tax on pipe tobacco by 775%.
As far as I see it there are two groups fighting this fight, the people who want to include cigarette smokers in the fight and the group that want to show a clear difference between cigarette smokers and pipe and cigar smokers. As much as I want freedom for all, I generally fall into the second category, but after this latest stunt by the RYO people there is no question where I stand. We need to make people aware that smoking cigarettes does not compare to smoking pipes and cigars. I don't have to remind you that the majority of pipe and cigars smokers are not addicted to nicotine. We can stay at work all day without having the need to take a smoke break. If we go outside it's because we want some fresh air or to take a walk.

So I'm asking you now to join in the fight. Don't just think about, DO IT. They have made it extremely easy this time by having the letters already created for you but you can still add your own comments. These will be sent off as emails to your state representatives. BETTER YET, they have included an option to have your letters printed and hand delivered to your reps in Washington for a service charge of $3 per letter. Letters work much better and as of this writing 4,384 letters have already been sent.
Please do your part, $9 is not much to ask and it's easy, safe and secure. If you can't spend the money, at least send the emails, it's quick and easy.

Here is a link to the information that was posted on the PipesMagazine.com website. Please do your part and send the letters now.

I want to send my letters now! Take me there!

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Details of the January Meeting
Our first meeting of 2010 was another great one and an excellent way to start the year. Our crowd at CB Perkins was a little smaller this month but we had the good fortune to meet up with Michael, another new prospective member of the club. Mike seemed to enjoy himself and was a two time lucky winner in the raffle. He won a tin of tobacco and a mini pipe shaped hookah that was donated as a raffle prize. In a recent email Michael says... "I just wanted to say thanks for great time at the SHPC meeting the other night. I will definitely become a member and I hope to see you all again at the next meeting. It was great, I had a lot of my questions answered, saw a lot of great pipes (especially Tim's handmade stuff WOW!) and a few myths dispelled as well. You have a great group of guys and you're fighting the good fight so count me in. One last question, in short order, how do I smoke this little hookah pipe a won?"
Mike, when you figure it out, you bring the pipe in and give us a demonstration.

DUES: Don't forget, if you haven't paid your dues yet, it is due by the March meeting.

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Better Days
A Series on Pipe Smoking's Nostalgic Past
                                                    By Ernie Whitnack

Member Ernie Whitenack has offered to write a series of articles about the "better days" of pipe smoking as remembered by him. We hope you enjoy these stories and look forward to them in future editions of the SHPC Gazette.

Grandpa Newt
In his home, where my grandmother always had a good supply of sugar cookies, was a sideboard upon which sat a large wooden bowl that housed a half dozen or so stubby pipes and a couple of cobs. Along side the bowl was a beautiful, Ivy pattern engraved jar where, under the heavy glass stopper, his supply of dark tobacco was kept. I had to stand on my tip-toes to see the arrangement that rested on a linen table runner. I liked the way light was refracted and reflected from the engraved glass causing multi-colored spectral patterns on the wall behind.

Unlike Grandpa Baloney, my grandfather Joseph Newton Whitenack had no talent regarding funny faces. Fact is, I don't know if he had any talents other than that for hard work and a loving heart.

His father owned an irrigation company and a plant for the manufacture of irrigation tiles. As a young man they installed irrigation systems throughout Illinois as well as many trips to the Southwest. It was hard pick-and-shovel work. He enlisted in the Missouri 22 Infantry Regiment in 1881, at the time if the last Indian insurrection, served in Colorado and Arizona and was discharged in 1886.                                          [Read more...]