The Pipe Bit: Tony Montana: Goodnight to the Good Guy

 

“You never know, that dishwasher may be a beholder.”

–Rick Ross, “Push It”

By Chris Rentner

     Antonio Montana–Tony to all–will be retiring from Uhle’s at the end of this week. In his 29 years of work here, he has done it all–the store, the warehouse, shipping and receiving, tobacco blending, even some bookkeeping. In everything, his diligence came through–we could all depend on Tony Montana.

     A Cuban native, Tony first came to Milwaukee in 1980. He was part of the Mariel Harbor boatlift, though he rarely talks about his younger life–he had, as all of us do to some extent, a reckless youth, and put it behind him. Through a friend of his he came to Milwaukee from Miami, even though “I had other paths open and things, you know. But I just wanted to try something new in the land of opportunity.”

     When Tony first started at Uhle’s, the country was in a recession, as it is now. His outlook, though, never wavered: “You work hard, you earn it. Though I have to say the bankers had better interest rates back then,” he said with a chuckle. And he remains optimistic about the current rough economy: “Just keep at it, keep moving product. You don’t have to break your back, but you got to stay loyal–to your suppliers, and especially your customers.”

     He credits Uhle’s for his sense of thrift. “I never owned a house. What do I need all that room for? I don’t need some fancy staircase or a statue. I learned to be happy with what I got.”

     Like all of us, he wasn’t above temptation. “I think everybody wonders ‘what if.’ If I had stayed in Miami, I don’t know. I don’t know if I would have been happy.” But instead of wanting the world, he made peace with his decisions: “It’s, you know, the people around you that matter. I learned that here. For a while, I thought I couldn’t change, that I wanted too much. But I learned to be happy.”

     He’s not happy, however, about the restrictions on smoking that he has witnessed over his long career. “It reminds me too much of The Beard,” he said, meaning Fidel Castro. “Restrictions everywhere. Telling you what to think, what to feel. For me, smoking is part of the freedom of this country, and it’s really sad to see it turned into something people think is bad.”

     He leaves Uhle’s happy, though. “I have changed for the better. I have made friends and overcame my past. It was being here that caused me to be a success. I made it.” I wanted to ask him if “here” meant this country or Uhle’s, but of course he had been called away to help someone.

     Thanks, Tony. When we see you leave Uhle’s at the end of this week, we know it is the last time we’ll ever see a good guy like you.

The Pipe Bit Little Bit: A Pause and A Preview

By Chris Rentner

              To quote the Cold Dead Hand of Management, I’ll be “charging the company for not working” by being on vacation next week.  And since the following Monday is Memorial Day, my entire web staff will be gone.  So both of my readers can enjoy the next two Mondays without being subjected to musings on pirates, the Saw movies, fried eggs, videogames or, on occasion, pipe tobacco.

                But when my web staff and I “choose to come back to work” on May 26^th, we’ll have a special Pipe Bit tribute to a member of The Help who will be retiring and the end of this month.  He came to this country in 1980 and has faithfully worked at Uhle’s for the last 29 years.  Even if you’re one of the Diaz brothers, you’ll enjoy it.  See you on the 26^th!

The Pipe Bit: After the Dance

By Chris Rentner

            In college—and, to correct the Wikipedia entry for this blog,  I actually went to UW-Whitewater—on some weekends, I would go to a bar called T&T’s.  I would plop down on a stool, slap a fresh pack of Alpine cigarettes (college, remember) on the bar and order some noxious concoction (college).  As I drank, I smoked.  The two were inseparable—the smoke complimented the liquor and beer.  So it is still for a lot of Wisconsinites…but only for a while longer.

            This week the Wisconsin legislature will pass a smoking ban on almost all workplaces, including bars.  And Governor Doyle will sign it.  Since I try to avoid politics in this blog, I will only say this about the ban directly:  today, with no state law, many non-smoking bars (grimaces) seem to be flourishing, as are bars that “allow” smoking.  This situation was not due to legislation but to initiative by business owners.  So a ban isn’t need, or wanted, I daresay, by the people who in large part actually make this country succeed (even in a harsh recession).

            Uhle’s and other smokeshops, and cigar bars, in Wisconsin will not be affected by the ban, due to start, as of this writing, July 5 of 2010.  So I can still come to work for Big Tobacco and light up, as I have at work for almost fifteen years.  I don’t have to go outside for a quick smoke break, or go to lunch at a restaurant that allows smoking.  I can smoke while I work, which is quickly becoming  a kind of honor…in another life, perhaps, I would’ve ended up working for Corporate America, here in downtown Milwaukee, and would  have had to duck into Uhle’s for a quick smoke.  There, this alternate me would commiserate about how hard it was to be a smoker.  And I would’ve been glad there was still a refuge, a safe place, that encouraged freedom.

            As the night wore on at T&T’s, some of my fellow students would try to “dance,” meaning left-right-left-right, more swaying than footwork.  Then we’d go home—often alone, sometimes not—after bar time.

            As the smoking ban looms, and we smokers—honest, moral, taxpaying citizens, among many other attributes—continue to be the object of harsh vitriol, it’s time to pull up a chair and think.  It’s time to figure out what to do after the dance.

The Pipe Bit: The Yellow, The Blue and The Black

By Chris Rentner

            Some things are completely unfair—like Hello Mary Lou Prom Night II using “Soul City” by the Partland Brothers without any type of credit (and the movie used that song three times!)  So it is with the discontinuation of a favorite product.

            Uhle’s was one of the six U.S. businesses to survive 2008, despite the decision to turn down the offered federal bailout money.  But the iron razor of ’08 continues to swing, and has claimed two products that have been friends to pipe smokers for years:  Bee Sweetener and Atmos Fresholator have been discontinued.

            These products provided a minor but appreciated function.  The stem of your pipe could be kept clean and somewhat sanitized by dunking a pipe cleaner in a bottle of either of these products, then swabbing the stem and bit.  They were called “sweeteners” because they not only kept the business end of a pipe clean but left behind a thin layer of sweetness that would go away the next time the pipe was smoked.

            Bee’s liquid was, yes, watery yellow while Atmos offered a blue-green hue in its product.  They each cost only a few bucks, if that, and graced many a smoker’s table through the years.  Any differences between the two were near nil—they had their function and they did it well.  But they were not essential to enjoying a pipe, falling into the wide chasm called “accessories.”

            There were two problems with sweeteners:  they could stain the bowl of a pipe, and—quaintly—the screw-top cap would roll off when the bottle was opened and would, of course, roll to the farthest reaches of the room.

            So Bee and Atmos sweeteners are no more.  As they leave the smoky stage, let’s have a least a round of applause for these products that tried to enhance pipe smoking, took up minimal room in inventory and even turned a profit (until lately).  We can now use alcohol to clean pipe stems, or run then under water (only the stem!) to clean them, yes.  But there were, once, two products dedicated to a single small function, just for pipe smokers.  Thanks, guys, and good night.

            This is The Pipe Bit, a Mark Goodson Bill Todman production.