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12pups

Lifer
Feb 9, 2014
1,063
2
Minnesota
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?

 

petes03

Lifer
Jun 23, 2013
6,212
10,653
The Hills of Tennessee
Mainly because I like to walk a slightly different line than most. But also because I enjoy the artistry and craftsmanship that goes into the pipes. Since getting into pipes a few years ago, I've really came to enjoy the tobacco side of pipes to a greater extent. I used to have a select few blends that I would smoke, which at the time were fine and gave me enjoyment and relaxation.

Since then, I've really enjoyed exploring the different genres of tobacco, finding my likes and dislikes, cellaring my favorites ect. ect.

I've really enjoyed collecting my pipes and tobaccos, almost as much as smoking them, almost!

I guess there are many reasons I prefer a pipe, too many to list actually!

 

burns

Lurker
Jan 23, 2014
5
0
I started smoking cigarettes when I was 15 and liked them. Randomly when I was Europe one year I saw a guy smoking a pipe and thought it looked really cool, so when I came back I went to a cigar shop where I knew a few people who worked there and bought one. I smoke aromatics off and on, but never really got into them. Later I got a job at this cigar shop and got into cigars, but I have expensive tastes so I tried not to get to into them. At the age of 30 I quit smoking cigarets, but since I quit drinking when I was 20 (because I'm an idiot when I drink) I wanted SOMETHING I could do to relax so I smoked cigars a couple of times a week. After 2 years of this and finding myself re-addicted to nicotine I picked up one of the pipes I still had from the cigar shop days and went to hunt for a better tobacco, it turns out that was the problem, aromatics aren't for me, English all the way.

 

12pups

Lifer
Feb 9, 2014
1,063
2
Minnesota
Trailboss, Petes, rsuninv, burns... thanks! Those are great stories. And trailboss... copper mines and CO2 drilling. Very hard for us to get stories down there since the industries are so tight-lipped. In 2009 we got an ARSARCO assignment and ... holy samoleans... you think we could get approvals to run the thing? No one wants responsibility for letting a guy with a camera on site. But, got 'er done. And the other writer here got the CO2 job done (purest CO2 in the country -- purer than factory-made and can be used by the food industry right from the ground -- AZ and NM reservoirs).
Been denied since then. Just too risky for them (corporate mining secrets, trying to stay profitable, and trying not to alarm tree-hugging owl-kissers). LOL
But... I'll let you know!

 

brudnod

Part of the Furniture Now
Aug 26, 2013
938
6
Great Falls, VA
I come from a long family history of pipe smoking including [at least] my grandfather who was district attorney of Cuyahoga County (Cleveland, OH) and was a proud but not excessive smoker, although he did inhale. A photo with him holding a Dunhill sandblasted bent from the 1940s (which I still have) sat on my father's desk for years. My father liked to smoke pipes but was wooed to the enticement of cigarettes. I first started smoking pipes with (my now recently deceased) brother in 1969. It was probably one thing we had in common was pipe smoking; nothing flashy but just 1/4 bent pipes and Balkan Sobranie tobacco. I have smoked somewhat off and on since and have more recently become a bit of a collector. My son does not have any interest in tobacco products, not that I can object on statistical health grounds (cigarettes more than pipe). I am still relegated to the out-of-doors by my wife which is fine (and don't get me started on who wears the pants in our house; that is obvious - not me). I mostly like to keep the pipes in good condition and with minimal odor so that they can sit in my study without my wife's complaint. I have no intention of quitting any time soon. But I am conscious of the risks in my family: my grandfather died of congestive heart failure from coronary artery disease, my father died of cerebrovascular disease (narrowed carotid arteries) and my brother died of COPD from his years to smoking cigarettes and inhaling deeply. I get screening frequently so I can enjoy the gentle smoke eminating from a well cared-for briar pipe on my back deck overlooking what we call the forever forest (Fairfax County Parks in Virginia) which backs up to our back yard. It is true bliss...

Spencer

 

allan

Lifer
Dec 5, 2012
2,429
7
Bronx, NY
Good stories
I started with a pipe when I was 17 using aro's like sail, borkam riff, capt black etc and switched to cigars about two yeas later--cigars were so much easier to deal with.
No one smoked in my family, I just enjoyed the smell.
For over forty years it was cigars only until about two years ago I was at a jewelry polishing firm in NYC where it was so hectic and noisy, I just couldn't even think.
I smelled a familiar odor and looked over to the owner of the firm calmly sitting at a polishing machine, oblivious to the hustle and bustle surrounding him , smoking a pipe.
I just looked at him, smelled the aro he was smoking, and knew I had to go back to pipe smoking. I had saved three old Peterson 's and cleaned them out, bought some capt black and then joined this forum
Can't possibly smoke aro's anymore (English and va's now), love well made pipes and great tobacco. (Sold two of the old Peterson's kept one for old times sake)
My smoking story

 

mso489

Lifer
Feb 21, 2013
41,210
60,433
Never had a cigarette habit. Grew up with a dad who chained smoked a pipe, some years a cigar. Now and then had

a cigar in college, Navy, grad school. My late wife had a major cigarette habit, so I took up sometimes smoking a pipe

in the late 1970s. Eventually ceased when my wife quit smoking, out of solidarity. Lost her in 2000 from an illness

that was not related to her smoking, as best as is known. Ten years later, I remarried my living wife who I'd met as

an undergraduate. She went through some harrowing surgeries with major pain issues and physical rehab, and I took

up my pipe, as a way to unwind but still stay sharp at the end of the day. She's now up and around and all over town, as I

say. I remain a moderate pipe smoker, usually one bowl a day. Sometimes none. Sometimes several.

 

virginiacob

Can't Leave
Dec 30, 2013
450
7
I was actually a latecomer to pipe smoking. Growing up in the '70s and '80s, I was around a lot of family members who were tobacco smokers, both pipe and cigarettes. My dad was a pack a day "Winston" man but on occasion also enjoyed his Dr. Grabow pipes (he finally quit smoking about the time I left for college in '87). I never liked, and still don't, the smell of cigarette smoke, but I always had fond memories of my dad as well as two uncles smoking their pipes. My uncles both smoked Sir Walter Raleigh and to this day I still have a fondness for this OTC blend. While in college I got involved with Civil War reenacting joining a local reenacting unit in my college town. There are quite a few tobacco smokers in the reenacting hobby and since cigarettes are strictly taboo since they are an anachronism for the period of the war in the 1860s, reenactors tend to smoke either cigars or pipes. Having been a non-smoker for most of my adult life, it was a combination of fond memories of my dad and uncles smoking pipes from my childhood and an interest in adding a pipe to my Civil War "impression" that initially drew me into the pipe smoking hobby. Initially I only smoked pipes at Civil War reenactments and encampments, but over time I began to enjoy pipe smoking and found myself wanting to smoke a pipe on a weekly basis (today I probably average 5-7 bowls/week). Last year my brother and I decided to start a pipe manufacturing business, Old Dominion Pipe Co., initially offering traditional bamboo stem Indian corn cob pipes. Wanting to promote our pipes, I contacted Kevin at Pipes Magazine and we became a site sponsor at the end of last year. At the same time I began following and posting on the forum and actually looking forward to chatting with my fellow pipe smokers everyday. Anyway, that's my story and I'm sticking to it! :puffy:

 

agnosticpipe

Lifer
Nov 3, 2013
3,332
3,413
In the sticks in Mississippi
I quite enjoyed your introduction/story! How did I start? I was sitting around with a friend about 1982 drinking some Meyers Rum, and he asked if I had ever smoked a pipe, or thought about it. I said no, and he said he'd been thinking about trying it. So we up and walked about 6 blocks to a local tobacco shop, and bought a couple of pipes, some tobacco, and appropriate supplies, and gave it a try. I lost touch with him, but still have enjoyed pipe smoking on and off over the years. I still have that pipe I bought, a little Savinelli poker, and like to smoke it from time to time. Oh, and I still like the rum too for that matter.

 

anglesey

Can't Leave
Jan 15, 2014
383
2
I liked your post, it was interesting and satisfyingly condensed. Your nightmares fascinate me, I've heard them about all sorts of things, but never tobacco before, but I won't ask you to embellish.
The first thing I ever smoked was a pipe, when I was 8 or so and my uncle left it sitting in his chair when he went to the john or somesuch. It was lovely. I started smoking ciggies when I was 12 or 13 or so, and carried on till I was about 15 and thought I'd buy another pipe, which I did, from Greens of Leeds, and a pouch of something I assume now to be a sort of virginia/cavendish, but I really can't remember. I can't remember what happened to my first pipe, I suppose I lost it or left it somewhere, it was naff anyway.

 

shutterbugg

Lifer
Nov 18, 2013
1,451
21
I started with cigars when I was 11. My grandfather and I would sit on the bench in front of his apartment and smoke together. I never had a taste for cigarettes. My dad had been a 2 1/2 pack/day smoker when I was little, but he and my mom both quit when I was 7, long before all the health risks were publicized. I bummed a few in college though, unfiltered Galoises that a girl I knew used to smoke, she was from Paris. But I always prefered cigars. In college in those days (early 70s)we could smoke in the smaller classes, but everyone, especially the girls, hated the smell of cigars and gave me hell for it. But they all thought pipe smoking was ok, in fact most of the girls said they loved the smell of a pipe. Ha! So I stopped at the campus B&M and they had a row of large glass jars with house blends. I opened one of the lat-heavy ones and it almost knocked me off my feet. I asked the proprietor if it smelled as bad when lit as it did in the jar, and he replied "No, it smells worse." So I bought a bag of it, just to get even with those who forbid me from smoking cigars :). I also bought a Savinelli punto oro. So I completely bypassed the usual route of a cheap drugstore pipe and aromatic tobacco.

 

crazypipe

Lifer
Sep 23, 2012
3,484
0
Great read and Welcome , I think smoking a pipe just came natural for me Frist pipe at 16 years old now 65 and still puffing:puffy:

 

12pups

Lifer
Feb 9, 2014
1,063
2
Minnesota
Thank you, gentlemen, for the kinds words and warm reception -- and even more for sharing those stories! Nice to see the similarities, and nicer still, the little differences that make all our paths interesting to each other.

 

phil67

Lifer
Dec 14, 2013
2,052
7
I started out at about the age of 5 or 6 with a plastic bubble pipe (don't remember the make), but I kept getting sick from from inhaling the soap solution. That turned me off for quite a few years until I picked up a mid-priced pipe at Iwan Ries on a whim about 1979 when I was in downtown Chicago. Much to my dismay and disappointment the sales clerk told me I couldn't blow bubbles with it so he recommended a mild aromatic tobacco. Due to a lack of inexperience I failed miserably at it and gave it up. Now, here I am at the age of 67 and I've jumped into it again, but this time I'm thoroughly enjoying it thanks to much of the information that is available on this terrific forum site with a plethora of more than friendly people. ;)

 

PlanxtyPipes

Starting to Get Obsessed
Mar 6, 2013
222
2
My story isn't nearly as long and interesting...but I'll tell it anyway. The main reasons I started smoking a pipe were

1) My grandpa smoked one, though he quit before I was even born. But I was told stories about his pipe smoking and it planted the seed.

2) You could still smoke in restaurants/bars and my "local" at the time was an Irish pub downtown. Listening to traditional Irish music and drinking beer/whiskey and smoking all went together for me. I wanted to back off on the cigarettes I was smoking though as they smelled bad and made my throat and eyes hurt when I smoked too many.

3) My friend that I liked to go to the Irish pub with got one. He had never smoked it around me...in fact I'm not sure he had even smoked it more than once or twice when he told me he had gotten one. But telling me he had one was the final "ok" that pushed me over the edge. We used to go to that little pub and sit there for a few hours having drinks, a leisurely dinner, and then a few more drinks all while smoking our pipes. The place had incredible atmosphere and the pipes just enhanced everything for us.

 

oldmannk

Starting to Get Obsessed
Jan 11, 2014
222
0
First great story. My dad was a cig smoker I have never been. When my first child was born I got the it's a boy cheep cigars and handed them out to my coworkers. My boss at the time lite up,and started smoking. Then he noticed I was not. I told him that I did smoke. He said the hell with that you smoking in honor of my son. Wouldn't you know I actually like the cigar. It didn't take long to figure that they are great to,take fishing for keeping bugs away of course LOL. I eventually progressed into more expensive and high end cigars. I smoke them with business colleagues and friends. I also joined the military and would smoke after training missions. Then 911 war, no more training missions it was the real deal. Needless I did a lot of smoking every night to celebrate not getting dead. LOL., and because my wife would not let me some them in the house because of the smell. She went and bought me a pipe so the house would smell better. I love the pipe because it forces one to slow down and enjoy life.
Welcome and good luck.
Oldmannk

 

phred

Lifer
Dec 11, 2012
1,754
4
Welcome, 12pups!
I started smoking a pipe a little over a year ago, after a friend of mine made an impulse buy during a writing retreat. His pipe tobacco smelled nice, and sitting out on the back porch while talking and/or writing was very pleasant, so I started doing some research on pipes, pipe tobacco, health issues, and so forth. Found this forum pretty early on, and actually joined up before I bought my first pipe...
Turned out to be a rough year. My mother-in-law was in hospice, dying of lung cancer at the same time I was researching smoking, so that made things a little weird. I lost my job about a month after she passed, and while we were preparing for her memorial service, my father-in-law fell and broke his hip - wound up in the hospital for a couple of weeks, and in a rehab facility for a few months after that. While I was looking for a job and studying for certification exams, I smoked a couple of bowls a day, learning how to pack, tamp, light, and not get my tongue totally scorched. Passed the first exam easily, and then got a job before I'd finished studying for the next one - and I credit the meditative effects of pipe smoking and the mental stimulus of nicotine for the relative ease with which I managed this transition... :D

 

sean81

Starting to Get Obsessed
Jun 26, 2013
126
0
I started smoking pipes a little over a year ago. Prior to my pipe smoking, I smoked cigars (mostly during football season while tailgating), then last year I decided to give the pipe a try and haven't looked back. I am lucky enough to be able to say that my wife supports my hobby and enjoyes the smells that come with it.
Welcome to the forums 12pups. I look forward to more of your interesting posts.

 
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