Peterson book

It was close, but we met Larry’s 2nd debut deadline on Thursday, December 23rd. Of Pipes & Men was an idea for a book Larry had a little over a year ago, and as his work is found throughout The Peterson Pipe and is also found in The Pipes of Basil Rathbone’s Sherlock Holmes, I immediately agreed. How hard could it be? He was going to do all the heavy lifting—twenty-four illustrations of famous pipe smokers. He even volunteered to let me help with the list of whom to include. All I had to do was write some little biographical sketches. *Ahem.* I won’t tell you how long my part took. Larry did this marvelous piece of Holmes for the title page of the Rathbone book Larry quite reasonably thought we could have this book out last March, but by May (in his genial and generous fashion) he realized that it was just going be done whenever I could get my end of it written. I’d like to claim that the blog and other writing projects was taking all my time, but that isn't quite the truth. What I thought would be long paragraphs turned into pipe-centric biographies and sometimes I'd find a book or documentary or article I wanted to read and find I'd missed another self-imposed deadline.  But the writing was good for me and somehow a number of famous Peterson smokers made it into the book (and the John Bull 999 even made it to the cover). I won’t mention how many Pete-smoking folks there are. Let's just say it was a slightly disproportionate number. The Thinking Man When I finally, finally thought I was done, my long-time graphic designer and techie came on board—Mel-Bud—she quickly delivered the goods, but not before sending me back a few times for more editing. But she eventually brought the whole thing together with terrific panache, making sure the layout and design not only look great but the paper and binding complemented the whole project. Larry and I both owe her a huge debt of gratitude. We’d also be very remiss if we didn't thank our friends at Smokingpipes.com for picking up our book as an exclusive, with their customary enthusiasm and geniality. (One YouTuber delighted in the archival comic-book style sleeve SPC placed each book in.  Very cool.) While he prefers remaining a bit of a mystery man, I’ve asked Larry if he might tell readers a bit about himself, his work and his long-standing interest in Peterson pipes. He agreed, although I warn you that you may never think about opening a can of spinach in the same way again!  Larry Gosser with two of his pipe-smoking heroes: Holmes and Cagney Larry: My first introduction to the pipe was smelling the aroma coming from my Dad’s pipe, which I remember liking.  But as a kid, more often than not I’d be laying in the floor in front of the TV enjoying another pipe puffer: Popeye. I used to whip…