Happy Holidays 2021

It is the morning of Christmas Eve 2021, and I am sitting in my basement-cum-office with a hot cup of black coffee and a bowl of Haunted bookshop in my Savinelli 622. I re-stemmed this pipe, and it is actually the only one of my stems that I own (but more on that later). As has become a tradition, I am writing a bit of a holiday letter to my friends, customers, YouTube viewers, and anyone else that happens to find this. In other words, this is the Christmas card I wish I could hand deliver to you.

The shop is warm and filled with the sounds of Holiday Traditions played on satellite radio. I decorated bit (with apologies to Mr Karloff).

I even put a sprinkle of cinnamon on the coffee grinds before shutting up the percolator this morning. Some one once told me that made coffee “taste like Christmas.” It does not. In fact I have to really try to even pull out a note of cinnamon. But it felt good to do it. Such a simple thing, done to no productive end, can bring a bit of joy. There is a little miracle buried in there, but I’m not going to dig around for it. I just point to it because it seems that this has been a year where I have really needed to find joy in the small things.

Not that it has not been a good year for me at a personal level. I’m both happy and healthy. I have a fantastic “day job” and was promoted this year. My family is all healthy and in good graces. I am in possibly the best shape of my life. I was always a “chubby” kid and in my adult years I tended to drift between fat and obese. The only exception, and it is an odd one, is that in my junior year of high school I just magically lost weight doing nothing different. This lasted through my college years and into grad school, but when I hit 30 I guess my metabolism gave up on me and I shot up to obese. In late November of 2021 I stepped on the scale and weighed in at 296 pounds. I never hit 300 in my life, but it was looking inevitable. So I resolved to change my diet and have lost 120 pounds since that day. I’m now within 15 pounds of a “normal” BMI for the first time that can remember and I feel fantastic!

Despite all of that, it has not been an easy year for me because so many friends suffered this year. Suffered through loss of jobs, crisis in family or friendships, cancer, loss of loved ones, and far too many have passed over. My heart is torn in so many directions, and my prayer list has grown to the point where I have to start keeping notes. I think of them all on a daily basis and pray that they receive some comfort in this very broken world. And I look for joy in the small things: a well made stem, a well composed carol, a little bit of cinnamon in my coffee.

Getting back to this Savinelli 622, I am pretty darn proud of this stem. It is comfortable, and the smoke seems to effortlessly glide from the pipe. I spent a lot of time over the past few years practicing the art of stem making, and this year I challenged my self to improve the slot and button. I think I have finally settled on a method that is reproducible and yields a quality end product. Some day I am going to go through my paperwork and count how many stems I have made, but it has to be approaching 300 by now. I still make mistakes, that’s what human beings do, and I still must improve. But the craftsman in me is happy knowing that I have mastered the fundamentals and am in the stage of refining my skills.

The pipe repair business was actually far too successful this year. I opened my waiting list in January and had to shut it down again in March when I reached 35 people patiently waiting. I’m still working through them and have 5 more to go, all stems. So Mark, John, Bill, Rick, and Ben I thank you for your continued patience. I will get these done. And when they are done, so am I.

I hate that I have to write these next few sentences, but I have come to the difficult decision that I will no longer be running a pipe repair business. I can point to a number of reasons for this. The financial side of things just does not make sense anymore, but I never did this for money. Time is the real problem. I’m lucky these days if I get 2 or 3 hours of shop time in a week. It takes me 10-12 hours to make a replacement stem from rod stock (I know I’m slow but have no interest in rushing). So that means that each customer that wants a replacement stem, and most want a replacement stem, has to wait 5 weeks once the pipe is in my hands. That makes me anxious. I’m amazed and humbled that people are wiling to wait so long for my work, but I feel terrible that they have to.

The other problem with time is that I need things in my life that are not “day job” or pipe related. I have a wonderful supportive wife that takes a back seat to ebonite dust. I have a house in dire need of remodeling work that I am fully capable of performing myself. I have dogs that love to walk with me, and I know streams where trout miss being tortured by my hand tied flys. In terms of personal development I have a craft that I want to explore. So I don’t view this as an end, but a new beginning.

The CaneRod pipes website will remain up, with some changes coming in the new year. And I will continue to write here on the blog, maybe I’ll even write a bit more regularly to keep you posted. And I hope that you will keep in touch. Thank you all for your patronage, support, and friendship. I send you all warm wishes for a Merry Christmas (or happy holiday if you prefer) and a blessed and healthy New Year.

Now go put some cinnamon in your coffee.