Wasn't able to add a post in "New Members." Maybe a temporary glitch? Said forum was closed.
Anyway, this might be a better place.
I started smoking pipes in 1972. I was 10. When I was 9, my father had given me a copy of Tom Sawyer, followed by Huck Finn. I read them over. And over. And over. Enthralled with the adventures they were having, it inspired me to do several things. One was building a raft and trying it on the Des Moines River where it runs through Ft. Dodge, IA, south of "the Little Damn." Fail.
The other was smoking pipe. But I didn't start right away. A kid had moved in kitty-corner on the intersection from my house. He smoked Kool in a box. I didn't like the menthol. I had been stealing my dad's Pall Mall's. But his mom had given the store down the block an okay for him to buy cartons and put them on her account (back then there were still neighborhood groceries, no convenience stores yet -- and no one really cared that kids smoked. Didn't like it, but didn't bust them. Heck, my dad used to send me for beer. They just put a 12 pack in a brown paper sack and I'd run it back to him. Sounds so evil now, but it was the way it was back then.)
So... free cigarettes.
Both my mom and dad smoked, but my mom -- for some INSANE reason, right? -- objected to her 10 year old son smoking cigarettes. And she said that, verbatim: "I do NOT want him smoking cigarettes in the house!"
So on my birthday, my dad presented me, with a wide, evil grin -- a Medico pipe and a plastic bag of tobacco.
That was it. I was Huck Finn! -- though corn cob pipes came later.
By the time I was in high school, I was just considered "cool": Joe smokes a pipe. Other kids wrote fake passes to get out of study hall to smoke cigarettes. I stole 500 study hall passes, signed them with my band instructors name (looked like mine and was easy to counterfeit), so that I could go to the band room during study hall and slip out the outside door there to my pickup and enjoy a pipe.
My favorite brand was Argosy Black and Gold. I can *still* smell it. I smoked it well into college and into my career as a teacher. It came in big white tin cans with the Argosy name and logo on them. I collected tins till there just wasn't room for them.
As a teacher, things got bleak. First, they passed a rule I couldn't smoke in the teacher's lounge, due to the big dense clouds it made. I had to smoke in the board room with the exhaust fans on. Then I was moved to the boiler room. I didn't mind. It was quiet and warm there. And then... they passed the first rules that there was no smoking in the building. And then... no smoking on the campus.
OMG! I used to smoke on the bus when I was chaperoning games, and now... no smoking -- anywhere.
No problem. I smoked to and from school and at home. I smoked while I grade papers and made units plans on weekends.
But then... I had my first child. I couldn't stand the idea of her brand new pink lungs being tainted by smoke of any kind. It was hard -- because I still smoked Pall Malls each day, a 2-pack-a-dayer. I had wanted to quit smoking cigarettes, just restrict myself to the pipe. But... it was so hard. Smoking anything made me revert right back to cigarettes.
In 1988 I quit cold turkey. Everything. Feb. 12 (Lincoln's birthday), 1988. End. Finito. No mas.
I had nightmares that I had smoked again. I could smell it so vividly. I swore I could smell it on my hands when I woke up. It might be 10 a.m. before I realized it was just a dream. But after three weeks... no problem.
I had been smoking for 17 years at that time. I did not smoke anything, ever again, until last year.
Long story, but after 24 years as a teacher, a single argument with an ego-crazy, brand new superintendent, cost me my career. That was 2007. I won the termination hearing but took the advice of my counsel to leave, let the school pay off my contract and go. It was that ugly. And a pissed off superintendent would just find another reason to fire me. So... I became a photojournalist in the mining and construction field. I travel the world writing application stories of technique, equipment, and innovation. And... miners and construction workers... smoke.
When my old friend the choir teacher invited me over for cigars last year, I finally felt it "safe" to accept his offer. My children are all adults. My wife and I are happily enjoying grandchildren who come now and then, but always leave before nightfall, most visits. It was "okay."
I was so taken by the flavors of the Dominican maduros and the two "country cannot be legally named" cigars he gave me that I joined a cigar club. But my wife, remembering the smell of the Argosy, was disappointed and unapproving. She wanted me to get a pipe again. And I did. And have repeatedly purchased more.
And... I kept running into this site, so I joined here recently.
Now... after that LONGGGGGG introduction, here's my question to you: Why did YOU first start smoking a pipe? What lured you to this gentlemanly and honorable hobby?
Anyway, this might be a better place.
I started smoking pipes in 1972. I was 10. When I was 9, my father had given me a copy of Tom Sawyer, followed by Huck Finn. I read them over. And over. And over. Enthralled with the adventures they were having, it inspired me to do several things. One was building a raft and trying it on the Des Moines River where it runs through Ft. Dodge, IA, south of "the Little Damn." Fail.
The other was smoking pipe. But I didn't start right away. A kid had moved in kitty-corner on the intersection from my house. He smoked Kool in a box. I didn't like the menthol. I had been stealing my dad's Pall Mall's. But his mom had given the store down the block an okay for him to buy cartons and put them on her account (back then there were still neighborhood groceries, no convenience stores yet -- and no one really cared that kids smoked. Didn't like it, but didn't bust them. Heck, my dad used to send me for beer. They just put a 12 pack in a brown paper sack and I'd run it back to him. Sounds so evil now, but it was the way it was back then.)
So... free cigarettes.
Both my mom and dad smoked, but my mom -- for some INSANE reason, right? -- objected to her 10 year old son smoking cigarettes. And she said that, verbatim: "I do NOT want him smoking cigarettes in the house!"
So on my birthday, my dad presented me, with a wide, evil grin -- a Medico pipe and a plastic bag of tobacco.
That was it. I was Huck Finn! -- though corn cob pipes came later.
By the time I was in high school, I was just considered "cool": Joe smokes a pipe. Other kids wrote fake passes to get out of study hall to smoke cigarettes. I stole 500 study hall passes, signed them with my band instructors name (looked like mine and was easy to counterfeit), so that I could go to the band room during study hall and slip out the outside door there to my pickup and enjoy a pipe.
My favorite brand was Argosy Black and Gold. I can *still* smell it. I smoked it well into college and into my career as a teacher. It came in big white tin cans with the Argosy name and logo on them. I collected tins till there just wasn't room for them.
As a teacher, things got bleak. First, they passed a rule I couldn't smoke in the teacher's lounge, due to the big dense clouds it made. I had to smoke in the board room with the exhaust fans on. Then I was moved to the boiler room. I didn't mind. It was quiet and warm there. And then... they passed the first rules that there was no smoking in the building. And then... no smoking on the campus.
OMG! I used to smoke on the bus when I was chaperoning games, and now... no smoking -- anywhere.
No problem. I smoked to and from school and at home. I smoked while I grade papers and made units plans on weekends.
But then... I had my first child. I couldn't stand the idea of her brand new pink lungs being tainted by smoke of any kind. It was hard -- because I still smoked Pall Malls each day, a 2-pack-a-dayer. I had wanted to quit smoking cigarettes, just restrict myself to the pipe. But... it was so hard. Smoking anything made me revert right back to cigarettes.
In 1988 I quit cold turkey. Everything. Feb. 12 (Lincoln's birthday), 1988. End. Finito. No mas.
I had nightmares that I had smoked again. I could smell it so vividly. I swore I could smell it on my hands when I woke up. It might be 10 a.m. before I realized it was just a dream. But after three weeks... no problem.
I had been smoking for 17 years at that time. I did not smoke anything, ever again, until last year.
Long story, but after 24 years as a teacher, a single argument with an ego-crazy, brand new superintendent, cost me my career. That was 2007. I won the termination hearing but took the advice of my counsel to leave, let the school pay off my contract and go. It was that ugly. And a pissed off superintendent would just find another reason to fire me. So... I became a photojournalist in the mining and construction field. I travel the world writing application stories of technique, equipment, and innovation. And... miners and construction workers... smoke.
When my old friend the choir teacher invited me over for cigars last year, I finally felt it "safe" to accept his offer. My children are all adults. My wife and I are happily enjoying grandchildren who come now and then, but always leave before nightfall, most visits. It was "okay."
I was so taken by the flavors of the Dominican maduros and the two "country cannot be legally named" cigars he gave me that I joined a cigar club. But my wife, remembering the smell of the Argosy, was disappointed and unapproving. She wanted me to get a pipe again. And I did. And have repeatedly purchased more.
And... I kept running into this site, so I joined here recently.
Now... after that LONGGGGGG introduction, here's my question to you: Why did YOU first start smoking a pipe? What lured you to this gentlemanly and honorable hobby?