What was your 1st Pipe Smoking Experience?

At 18 figured that since I had a draft card and was going to college that I was old enough to try a pipe, as every college man did in the 1970's. Got a drug store pipe and some cherry blend and proceeded to fire away. I soon bought a "real" pipe when I discovered a small B&M near home- a GBD pot and then got turned to Dunhill blends by the owner. The rest is history and 44 years on I'm on here learning more about our hobby.

My first attempt at pipe smoking was earlier this year; trying to light a cherrywood pipe with some loose pipe tobacco I'd just bought, stood in a windy street in central London. I didn't know what I was doing, but I liked the taste. Still I went straight back to cigarettes.
My first proper pipe smoking experience was a few weeks later. I'd watched some youtube videos on how to pack and light a pipe, I had got a proper pipe (a Parker Zulu), some proper tobacco (Dunhill London Mixture) and was sat next to a log fire with a glass of wine and a book.

I cannot begin to describe the sublime pleasure I experienced that night (though I'm guessing if you're on this site you know what I mean).

Smooth, delicious smoke (I had no desire to inhale), 100% mind blowing joy.

Italian basket pipe. Shitty whiskey-rum-vanilla something or other tobacco. 48 relights.
I was 18 or 19. Over the next 10 years or so I only smoked a pipe once in a rare while. (What's a pipe cleaner?)
A couple of years ago, a friend let me smoke some Dunhill Nightcap in one of his pipes. It was a total revelation -- the tobacco was so smooth and mild and the flavors were so clean (a clean pipe, I later learned, also helps). The best thing was that the next morning my mouth didn't taste like an ashtray.
Nightcap was my first relatively natural tobacco and I loved it. I was hooked. The next week I bought a Peterson bulldog and a tin of Frog Morton on the Bayou. The rest is history.

I made the mistake of going to a cigarette shop to try it out. I bought a Chinese pipe (looked like wood but was made of plastic and had a metal bowl) and got a bag of the store's rum pipe tobacco. Holy tongue bite! I had to take three days off before trying again because I roasted the tip of my tongue.
After a couple weeks of that and lurking on this site I got a cherrywood pipe, some CBW and a PM account ... the rest is history.
That cherrywood pipe broke, no loss, and I had acquired a handful of estates before I was like "I'm in."

Like others, I bought a $8 basket pipe at a cigarette shop. The tobacco was RYO. Luckily the pipe cracked after a few attempts. As a non-smoker at the time this was a horrible experience. Luckily, the pipe cracked after a few smokes. The tobacco was added to the gardens to keep the cats away.
I knew this was not the way pipe smoking was supposed to be. I bought a decent pipe at an estate show. I bought two blends from a local cigar B&M. I found this site and was introduced to the Chicago Pipe Show. The rest is history.
Winton

Great stories, gents.
My first was sometime in the early '60s... I was probably about 7-8 years old. My grandfather (the single greatest man I ever met) made a corncob pipe for me to play with from an ear of corn from his garden. After a few days of pretending like I was my dad (who smoked a pipe at the time), my grandfather told me about something he called "rabbit tobacco." I had no idea what it was then and still do not know but whatever, it was growing on his property somewhere. He packed some in the pipe for me and lit it for me.
My dad, mom, grandma and several aunts and uncles were in the room watching as I burned the ever-lovin' crap out of my tongue. --- never had a desire to try it again until a few months ago. Obviously, that experience was far different from today!

I was 14 and found an old drugstore pipe of my father's with some powder dry tobacco. Awful smoke.

Bought a Kaywwodie estate to smoke cigar nubs in....terrible results.

I was 19. A good friend gifted me a brand new Peterson Flame Grain shape 68 and a tin of C&D Cross Eyed Cricket, along with the required accessories.
To this day I still love that Peterson despite it having a poorly replaced stem I need to fix. I also still love Cross Eyed Cricket.
He started me off right

I was probably 17 or so, and it was Captain Black White in a borrowed Dr. Grabow billiard.

It didn't go so well!

It was some years later before I actually took up the pipe.

As I said before everyone in the family smoked a pipe with the exception of the women. It was sort of expected of you and it was helped by the fact that I enjoyed it. I always remember my Father buying packs of Mellow Virginia whilst I was studying at Uni. I used it as a sort of ham burger helper for Condor. Does anyone remember the adverts for Mellow Virginia with the fellow who has come home to find his wife has run off with the judo instructor. He fills his pipe and uses his wife's note to him to light his pipe! I thought that was pure class!

After a few years of smoking cubans I tried the pipe after being curious. Overpriced medico and some otc buttered rum blend. It tasted like nothing and required 1 million relights but I was already hooked on the idea of mastering it. After a couple months I bought my first tin of London Mixture and it was all over after that.

When I was 15, I was away at camp for the summer near Traverse City, Michigan. Some other kids dared me to sneak into town and buy some cigarettes, so I did and came back with several packs of Lucky Strikes. Unfortunately, that day I became hooked. I smoked cigs all through high school (sneakily, of course, although the smell must have been obvious to everyone around me.)
When I moved to New York to attend college, it seemed there were pipe shops on every corner. Just looking in the window was a sensory treat. So I bought my first pipe (I think it was a Kaywoodie) and some Rum & Maple tobacco, and I've been happily puffing away ever since (56 years now, and I've got 56 pipes, more or less). ::

About 2 and half years ago. Bought a 30 dollar chzech basket pipe and an ounce of 1Q. Cooked my tongue like no tomorrow, being a long time cigarette smoker, I went way to fast and packed all wrong. Still had fun with it though, so I kept on trying. Besides, the meditative aspect really appealed to me.

I smoked cigarettes off and on for 10-15 yrs. Leveled out on RYO Bugler Gold(a hard to find sweeter tasting Bugler). Being an old pot smoker I thought the Hooka looked like fun. I found it gave a heady rush of a nicotine hit even tho the nicotine levels are low in shisha. The sweetness of tobacco and molasses was intriguing.
A guy at work smoked a pipe at breaks and got me interested. He didnt try to sell me on it, I just wanted give it a try. I bought a couple elCheapo pipes mixed some of my Bugler Gold and some Shisha together and liked the taste. The old connoisseur of marijuana in me came out as there were some nice rich tobaccos of high quality for the pipe smoker. After a little research I learned one could purchase some old Kaywoodies and Yelo Boles that were said to be well aged briar and some were very decent smokers and could be had a very reasonable prices. I bought some of the Sam Sam Gawith Full Virginia Flakes and started in on burning my tongue regularly, LOL.
Since then I have tried many styles of estate pipes and studied up on types of tobaccos and blends. I have one small Peterson 317 but yet to purchase a high end pipe. On tobaccos, Latakia got my attention and Canadian pipes. I now purchase Blending Latakia and use it frequently to flavor up a tobacco I try which isn't quite what I enjoy. Bought some Blending Perique but it doesnt appeal to me too much although I will throw it in the catch all jar sometimes. I started in Jan 2014 and just now finding the level of moisture I should smoke with my slightly faster puff rate than average. I made myself a homemade Churchwarden which I like really well. I still have issues with my tongue and I smoke the pipe almost constantly. I dont inhale anymore except on accident which was one of my motivating factors in devoting all my smoking to the tobacco pipe now. An uncle I had smoked cigars for twenty years or more and his Dr thought he was a non-smoker looking at his lungs. I dont see me smoking anything else from now on. (I guess I would hit a hooka at a gathering maybe.)
So I guess I eased into the pipe smoking and never really had a bad experience at all, other than the slight tongue problems. My diabetes may be a contributing factor in that area.(another subject)
Interesting subject, Thx for starting it nkourilo!

Here's a picture of little Cosmic and his uncles all have never been seen without a pipe in their mouth. This one with the cowboy hat would even sleep with a burning pipe in his mouth. My Grandad, great uncles, etc... We grew tobacco, made our own pipes, and it was just what a guy does.

Although there are many picture with little me with a pipe in my mouth, the first times I remember actually smoking a pipe on purpose was with some of the drying leaf in the tobacco barns in someone's pipe that got set aside. Men used to only smoke one pipe all day long, and then when they were ready for a new one, they made another pipe, or bought one, whichever, and they typically just threw the old one away or tossed it in the fireplace. I had several pipes that I used as toys that had been finished with by someone in the family and would smoke crap leaf uncased cardboard-like tobacco out of one of those old pipe while fishing at the family pond. I found that I liked rabbit weed better, but that only lasted till I was fourteen and could buy my own packs of cigarettes at the convenience store. I think they were almost 50 cents a pack back then.

Then began the battle with cigarettes, and that lasted till I came back to the pipe.

That's the Reader's Digest version... ::

If that Sergie guy is still alive, you should get him back some how.
I was smoking hand rolled cigars for a few years when I started hanging out in a B&M that was big into pipes and tobaccos and had a good number of pipe smokers hanging around. I'd go in a couple times a month, maybe, get some cigars and hang out. I got the idea in my head to try the pipe but like an idiot, instead of consulting the guys at the shop, I bought a Dr. G and a bag of drugstore maple rum crap. In retrospect maybe it was good that I did it that way because I learned quickly how NOT to get into pipe smoking. When I went into the shop shortly after my tongue recovered, the owner and a couple of his regulars took me under their wing and got me started off right. That was like 14 years ago and we are all now good friends, still smoking pipes and the occasional cigar. It's great having a B&M fairly close by.

First pipe was a filtered basket briar and local blend call "Lieutenant's Blend". Packed it too loose, smoked it too hard and fast, but liked the blend. After finding out I had tongue bite, I rested it a few days, watched a few youtube vids on 'how to', took out the nasty filter. Net result was much better over the next few bowls and learned to slow down, pack the pipe better and enjoy.
I still love the Lt Blend, but have retired the basket pipe, keeping it as my first, but not my best.