tinderbox

Nice sign. I think we still have one in the area of Saint Louis, but nothing is like it was in the Seventies (can't believe I am complimenting that horrid decade). We had mall stores like Tobacco Land. In a Victorian style outside mall there was as smokeshop where all the tobacco titles were tied to Sherlock Holmes. I think Grimpen Mire was Captain Spice. Go to shop next to it you could get a derby and cane. Good decade for smokes, if little else. Oh, the Godfather. Something else nice about the Seventies

Tinderbox stores used to be in every mall here in California... guess what it's like now...

A few week ago I picked up a poker that was stamped Tinderbox International. Got it for $9.00.

A Tinder Box in a mall is where I started. I still have 6 or 8 pipes I bought there in the late '70s and '80s.

The Tinder Box near Dunwoody, Georgia, where I grew up, was the primary instigator in my falling in love with all things pipe.

In the late seventies, I would skip school and ride the bus to Towne East in Wichita, even though I didn't smoke a pipe, I loved looking at the pipes on display and sniffing the bulk blends.

In about 1982, I visited the Tinderbox in Mountain View at the San Antonio shopping center and bought a small figural turban headed meerschaum pipe and North Sea Tobacco...I thoroughly enjoyed in on my SF/LA/SD run...I wish the people in that store had taken more of a proactive approach in explaining other tobacco blends and more about pipes...


From 1986 -2014 I quit smoking.


In 2014, I visited the tinderbox in Mesa on Southern Ave., bought a Joh's pipe and a couple pounds of Super Balkan II for about $22.00 a pound on their Wednesday pipe night...they had a group of pipe smokes that gathered on Wednesday's but I always had to be other places and never met up with them....then the store closed shortly after.

i found out that the owner still had a Tinderbox in Chandler, and that is where the Arizona pipe club started meeting regularly after our initial meetup at Ye Old pipe shop in Phoenix....then that store went out of business.

Knowing what I know about Franchisee cost's and the wane in the pipe business through the eighties, it is understandable why independent cigar shops are now the norm....doesn't stop me from dreaming about the good old days though.

I was at that shop many times when I was on layover waiting for freight loads from the circuit city warehouse. the first time there the manager kinda looked at me like I didn't belong there... granted I looked like I was Wal-Mart shopping not pipe and cigar shopping/smoking. His tune changed when I bought some tins of FMOTT and Black Mallory then filled a PoTY meer from  a forum I belonged to back then. I went as far to offer him a diamond crown cigar, this was before they were available east of the Mississippi River, which he gladly accepted. After that I was his new best friend every time I had a layover and spent my evenings in the shop. I could see how the attitude of the staff etc would be a huge put off to people though. 

Spent the night in Palm Springs and whilst walking to the english bar we visit, I saw a sign for Tinder Box, so stopped in and had a look round, lots of items that were more at home in a Hallmark store, but plenty of cigars, only a few tins of Dunhill and about 20 jars with TB blends, I purchased a couple of Nightcap and about 4 different blends to try out.

The owner explained he has been a franchise for about 40 years and he is slowing passing on the business to his family, he said that the problem is that they do not have the same passion so he is unsure of the future!

We spent about an hour there, only 1 other person came into the store and left without purchasing anything, we go to Palm Springs 4-5 times per year, wonder if it will still be there next time!

As kid we always stopped at the Gulf station on the way to town for random amounts of gas. 2$-7$ etc. There was an old man named Andy that pumped it and always had a lollipop in his pocket for 6 year old me. Now when I find a reason to detour through the old home place and take in the sights, I see that old station boarded up. Dormant for nearly two decades.. Sometimes I have to pull over and just wade through the memories that flood through me the way they sometimes do before I can continue on my way. Old Andy has probably been gone for twenty years. Steve King said in the Dark Tower 'The world moves on'. It's a simple sentiment, but also a profound observation. I'm sure some french philosophy covers this, but its heartbreaking to hold the world as it was in one's memories and deal with the fact that those memories are the only proof of it's ever being real. Just thought I'd share that thought. I've never visited a Tinder Box,but I sure as hell know what it's like to miss one. Haha

My home town had a population of 6k as a kid. The factories(cardboard boxes, glass, and pottery) closed down and today, I believe it's in the neighborhood of 1600. As with 'Butcher Town' it makes one wonder where the hell things are now being made. Haha

Small town small business has disappeared forever, sad state of affairs, didn't Alan Jackson write a song about it!

I will then!

The beef ribs in my other post had IBP on the cryovac.

Back in the 80’s I handled a lot of IBP product, they were definitely king of the hill... they pretty much broke the back of the butchers union... and from what I was told back then, they had a lot to do with the ending of hauling swinging beef, it all went to boxed, that was a good thing IMHO....certainly a force to be reckoned with.

I have been out of the meat business for many moons.

I used to get exclusively Certified Angus Beef from National out of Liberal Kansas.... at wholesale prices.

It was a rude awakening for me when we started eating a lot more chicken in my post meat career.

Bought my first pipes from a friendly Tinder Box manager while in college.

Two deep, dark secrets I trust the collective won't hold against me: I like aromatics, and my current favorite is Tinder Box Wilshire (not my all-time fav, but of what is in current production.). I know, sweet, yeah, too much so, wet, if you don't let it dry a bit, but we are doomed to like what we like. Of course, I never claimed a sophisticated pallet.