Age
- Thread starter St. David Pipes
- Start date
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I feel for you guys who started pipes at such a young age. I remember one guy in college who smoked a pipe and wore vests to class. People sort of avoided him. It was such a pretentious look. It must have been lonely being such a young pipe smoker. It reminded me of the one guy in college who had a mohawk and safety pins sticking in face all over like a reluctant voodoo doll. To be that one odd ball.
I tried picking up the pipe in my early 30's, but even then I would have been reluctant to go out in public. Plus, it just wasn't worth the learning curve for me them.
Then, in my mid 40's... I am never sure when I started exactly. Hell, I have to stop and do math just to remind myself how old I am now.
I tried picking up the pipe in my early 30's, but even then I would have been reluctant to go out in public. Plus, it just wasn't worth the learning curve for me them.
Then, in my mid 40's... I am never sure when I started exactly. Hell, I have to stop and do math just to remind myself how old I am now.
Very true. I would not be surprised if an anti-smoking lobbyist used this exact thread as evidence for tobacco restriction laws. Just sayin…..
It's probably flavored aromatics that are bringing the kids in.
17, unless there are Feds on this forum. Then when I turned 18 of course
Yep, that's exactly what I meant. Sure, folks here picked this up when they were kids, but many now have kids and grandkids... Today's kids are vaping, that's what's trendy, not smoking pipes.
That may be the conclusion of the legislators who may ban all flavors for all products. Unfortunately it may be regulated to prohibit all casings and toppings, which would affect most pipe tobacco sold today. I hope our paltry lobby has enough influence to incorporate exceptions for pipe tobacco’s.It's probably flavored aromatics that are bringing the kids in.
17. I'm 80 now and still buying pipes and tobacco.
Good music right there. Those were some good times.
Yeah. Precisely my thought in following this thread. Pipesmagazine subscribers are a self-selecting crowd, and so many of us have smoked pipes for quite a while. Respondents may not fairly represent variation in the starting age among the pipe smoking community, let alone the starting age in the general population.
To give a little context on the part of those of us who started with pipes in our teens (before age 18), it's important to remember that kids usually find ways to get their hands on and use alcohol, illicit drugs, vapes, and other tobacco products (mostly cigarettes and much less commonly cigars) when they're legally under age. I can't imagine there is — or ever was — an epidemic or even high proportion of teenagers trying to buy pipes and pipe tobacco. When times were a little more permissive, it was just easier for under-18s to buy pipes and tobacco than it was to buy alcohol or cigarettes. Based on the anecdotes shared in this thread, some of us obviously got an early start with pipes thanks to that permissiveness (partly, anyway). And into the 1980s, social attitudes toward cigar and pipe smoking were generally more benign than they are now. I'd guess that many or even most of the posts in this thread reflect those factors.
With widespread tobacco bans, the social stigma connected with smoking, and the prohibition on selling tobacco to anyone under age 21, it seems unlikely that large numbers of aspiring under-21 pipe smokers are getting a premature start.
F
fMf Piper
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So glad to have grown up in the Pacific Northwest when Grunge was "the" music in the 90's. That music spoke for an entire generation!
I agree that many who say it's a hobby are trying to rationalize smoking. However, for those who like me collect pipes and tobacco, occasionally smoking them and generally seeing it as a rare leisure time activity it is precisely that...a hobby. Many other hobbies are dangerous as Pope John Paul II could attest as he was a skier. To say you have no bias is ignoring your own humanity and your own vehement denial of any aspect of pipe smoking to be a hobby. You also did insinuate that (m)any who call it a hobby are afraid to enjoy it...
29 years old. Any younger and I wouldn’t have stuck with it.
Me and my buddies started with the Copengagen hiccups in Junior High School, with Reds right on the heels of that. A gag gift Cob on my 30th birthday got me started smoking a pipe, and a while later I stopped the cigarettes in favor of it.
But Copenhagen is my first, and I don't go long without it stuffed in my lip!
But Copenhagen is my first, and I don't go long without it stuffed in my lip!
Pretty much in the same boat, though I’m just doing it now because I’m very much addicted. I stuck with dipping when I quit smoking cigarettes, then, when I started pipe smoking, my goal was to give up the dip but now I just do both regularly with the intent to quit dipping someday so I can enjoy the pipe for the rest of my years, it’s just too expensive and ya can’t cellar dip. My love affair with lady nicotine started at the age of 12. I remember the very first signs of addiction, my brother and I walked across the golf course to pick up a can of dip from the store that usually sold to us but the person that day carded us. I actually shed some tears that night because I couldn’t have my dip while watching Aladin. Haha!
Not sure whether to take this expression of sympathy at face value or to read a little irony into it. Either way, I appreciate the post. ;-)
I don't remember feeling terribly stigmatized or ostracized as a late-teens/early-20s pipe smoking guy on my university campus. Of course, I felt self-conscious smoking my pipe in public at the beginning, but I gradually got over the (mostly mild) discomfort of being an oddball. I gained a little confidence every time I met another guy with a pipe, spent an afternoon smoking at a local pipe shop, or smoked a bowl after a long evening of studying at the library. The most surprising thing about smoking my pipe in public and around friends was that it was rarely a big deal. I'm pretty sure I didn't even own a vest (or a tweed coat or a bowtie), and the last thing I wanted to do was call more attention to my (very self-conscious) self. My pipe was just a natural way to relax and occasionally socialize. ;-)