Peterson Old Boy lighters

Brethren, our text for this morning is from the prophet Tabbakuk, Chapter 30, verse 9: "And the pipemen asked, 'Are the Peterson Old Boy-style lighters worth it?' And flicking his Pete Old Boy to light his favorite System he answered wryly, 'Yea, verily.'" I began my combustion journey as a pipeman in the early1980s using matches—the beautiful Rosebud matches made by the Ohio Match Co. in the late 1970s and always available in the grocery stores in Tulsa where I lived. In my self-produced pipe smoker’s magazine, Pipeman’s Quarterly: For Pipe & Coffee Connoisseurs, I couldn’t resist creating a faux-ad: The Winter 1981 issue of PQ As soon as I’d seen Citizen Kane I knew there had to be a tiny sliver of Charles Foster Kane’s childhood sled in every carton. The guarantee is stamped "Mar 26 1962." Cost? $3.95. It wasn’t too long, however, before I discovered the amazing if curiously-named Nimrod Pipeliter, which had been around since the 1950s. Nimrod was the guy, if you recall from Bible class, was a well-to-do hunter who funded the Tower of Babel, which if memory serves had a few low-bidder problems. Nimrod was also frequently dissed by two of my comic heroes—Daffy Duck and Bugs Bunny.* Be that as it may, the Nimrod was—and is—a wonderful accessory. If you haven’t seen a Nimrod before, you may think you can find it on the nuts and bolts aisle of the hardware store… The indefatigable researcher Doug Valitchka has a great entry on it at Pipedia, which makes for delightful reading. I have no idea what happened to my Nimrod, but in talking about lighters to Ken Sigel, CPG, who loves them, he generously provided me one for old time’s sake to illustrate this post. Not the original 1982 SOLILD BRASS version, but a current one.  Before the Ohio Match Company went out of business in 1987,* Zippo had introduced its first pipe lighter, the 1982 brushed brass affair with its discrete black pipe and the open circle lighter insert.  The great thing about a brass lighter is that it just looks better and better the older it gets. Because the brass has already been brushed, additional wear marks from sitting deep in my jeans pocket simply enhanced its ruggedness. I believe mine bore the SOLID BRASS legend, although my new one doesn’t. I could not resist this very Celtic Zippo at SPE when I saw it, even though the weight of the front panel makes it difficult to flick open in true gangster style. I remember at one point I was going away for the weekend and flooded the packing of my Zippo, determined it wouldn’t dry out on me. Twelve hours later there was a strange burning sensation on my upper thigh. Cut to the chase, at some point I gave up on the Zippo without ever having really mastered what it can do. At the urging of fellow Pete Geek Shimshon Cook, I recently reconsidered that position, especially as the Zippo…