I had a wonderful time at the recently completed year 2022 NASPC Pipe Show. A huge thanks to both Jeff Knoll & Eddie Fliess as well as their band of very dedicated and hard working volunteers who put on the show. I have recently begun driving to as many pipe shows as possible rather than fly, as I’ve had about all the fun I can handle with airports, flight delays, going through the long lines at the TSA screening checkpoints, etc. After more than 20-years of that fun, I have decided that a leisurely drive – even if it takes two days to get to the show and two days to drive home (Ohio is a long haul from Texas), is way more fun. I can smoke my pipe anytime I want to, and I actually love sneaking glances at the scenery as I drive through states that I’ve not seen in many years while enjoying puffing on one of my briars. And, I prefer my own company with no one seated next to me to whine, chatter, sneeze or cough all over me for several hours as happens on plane trips. And I know that my luggage won’t get lost either because it’s in the trunk of my car!
As for the NASPC extravaganza; I was shocked to find the show room to be crowded from start to finish on Friday night, and once again on Saturday. And lots of sales were being made everywhere I looked. Many of the pipe makers told me that they had great shows, and just about any vendor who sold tobacco left with far less than they started with. I know that I helped the tobacco vendors because I brought home a boat load of great old blends and many of them are now appearing with my weekly website updates. The smoking tent was also packed both days of the show, and I admit that I did spend a lot of time in that tent gabbing with folks while smoking my pipes and talking pipes and tobaccos.
Since I’ve been putting tobacco in pipes and then smoking the contents for over 45-years, and because I run a website that features pipe tobacco, and especially because I look old and harmless, people just seem to gravitate towards me when they want to share their pipe tobacco experiences. And I love that. Seeing how excited so many of our fellow hobbyists seem to be when discussing pipe weed gets me excited too! I was especially thrilled to discuss pipes and tobaccos with so many younger people who attended the NASPC Show. Those young folks are the future of our hobby, and to be able to share in their youthful enthusiasm made even me feel more youthful. My only regret is that it didn’t help me look more youthful, too (insert heavy sigh here).
One of the younger attendees at the show had a great question; How do blenders figure out how to make such great tobaccos to smoke by combining just the right leaf to make it all work? That question brought back great memories of a discussion I had many years ago with world renown blenders Greg Pease, Tad Gage, and Dr. Fred Hanna. Pease has created some of the world’s finest ever blends such as Bohemian Scandal. Hanna is the inventor of two very special blends that were top sellers for McClellands – Wilderness and Legends. And Gage gave us his famous and delicious 3 Oaks recipes. That discussion with those fine gentlemen occurred at the year 2013 Kansas City Pipe Show, and I love this picture of that famous trio sitting together at that show as I photo bombed them in the background! Pease is on the left, Hanna is in the middle with Gage on the right. Pease has such a scientific approach to creating blends that it would take someone who understood Einstein’s E = mc2 theory to figure out how he does it. Hanna, because he has a doctorate in Psychiatry and could already get into other people’s minds, found a way to get into their taste buds too. And did you know that years ago, Hanna came up with a simple formula for normal people like you and me to chart our own tobacco ratings? It is a fabulous formula that I follow religiously and maybe you will, too. Here it is and it has been very helpful to me: http://www.naspc.org/images/tobaccoratingform.pdf
In closing, that trip to Columbus, Ohio was sure worth every minute spent driving to and from. It was just a fabulous weekend and if you are reading this, and have never attended an NASPC Pipe Show (or, any other pipe show for that matter), please consider doing so in the future. You’ll thank me for the suggestion!
Steve
