If You Had To Do It All Over Again

[anthonyrosenthal74]

,I started out wit a cob and CH back in 19966

8O He's from the future!

 

[pipesmokingtom]

At least we know pipes get cheaper 18,000 years from now.

 

[darthcider]

I would have bought decent pipes earlier and not flitted around so much with tobacco.

But the journey of the last couple years has been enjoyable.

 

[dottiewarden]

I'm very satisfied with the path I've taken.

Other than a few impetuous TAD and PAD moves, I've been overwhelmingly satisfied with the vast majority of pipes and pipe tobacco blends I've purchased over the years.
Two blends I regret having ever tasted are Peterson Sherlock Holmes and Mac Baren Cherry Ambrosia.

 

[PaulTheScandinavian]

Well,pretty interesting question,let me declare,I very pleased after finding this community to hear and learn more from experimented and seasoned pipesmokers,secundo,I'd surely wish I'had gotten into pipes much erlier back those days when I was young,yes I have always had ome decent pipes handy,nevertheless,back in those days I usually went for cigarettes and cigars,smoking my pipes only occasionally,But now after remarkable renewing process of my older one pipes with brand new ones(,without exaggerating or braggin this took about a year of searching, selling and buying yet gops of $)I wish I now can keep going on with my new 'Hobby' No,I better like sying with my new smoking habit,additionally I wish I'had learned erlier yet do not pack your bowl overly tight,yet you ought to air your baccy before lightin up,knowing this before It'd would have saved me from lots of depression an sufferins, Paul

 

[mothernaturewilleatusallforbreakfast]

I think the only thing I would change is to go back and keep some of the pipes I've let go. I'm not an emotional guy, especially when it comes to inanimate objects; but there are a couple I still think about. Otherwise, the journey to where I am as a pipe smoker today was an enjoyable one without any regrets.

 

[jabo]

I would have started flakes,plugs, and ropes a lot sooner . Also would have gotten the pure (English,Balkans, etc.) a lot earlier. Used up a lot of years on purely aromatics.

 

[fitzy]

I would have started sooner with Balkan/English blends.
Also I would have finished a tin before opening another. I've got so many open that I threw in mason jars after smoking a bowl or two it's ridiculous. So much sampling that it got in the way of my cellaring.

 

[mackeson]

I wouldn't change much. I think every experience, even the mis-steps, has given me the appreciation for the tobaccos, pipes, and techniques I enjoy today.

That being said, I would tell a young me to buy some McClelland VAs to put away with a note, "Do not open until 2016."

 

[jerwynn]

I wouldn't have started in the first place. COPD symptoms almost destroyed my sleep last night. Very depressed over it all. Had my last flake of SG Brown Sugar Flake yesterday... and every time I tried to whiff and sniff the smoke, which I seriously enjoy... and what relatively little got into my lungs was like a sulphuric acid inhaler. And here I sit with 50ish pipes and thousands of dollars worth of tobacco. Depressed. I'm sure this is just the depression talking... and yet our hobby DOES take a toll on our health. I am SOOOOOOOO envious of the many fellows on here that seemed to have pipe-smoked 30, 40, and 50 years with almost nothing but enjoyment out of it. I'm sorry guys... I shouldn't have posted this. My heart is just so heavy. Gotta be the depression talking.

 

[jerwynn]

I apologize for the preceding.

 

[pipesmokingtom]

I appreciate your honesty and am sorry you're having a rough time.

 

[mawnansmiff]

I just wish I had picked up the pipe earlier in life. I was 54 when I started...quite the latecomer compared to most folks here. I did enjoy my RYO afore the pipe but the latter gives me far more pleasure.
Regards,
Jay.

 

[mso489]

Luckily, after some wrangling in my mind and some thought, I don't think I'd change much. However, talking to someone starting out or renewing pipe smoking, I'd suggest they consider the option of owning fewer pipes at higher end prices, whether that means estates or new pipes. Acquire them much more slowly and end up with fewer "finer" pipes. So, why don't I regret not doing that myself? Because I truly savor and enjoy my U.S. factory pipes and other lesser pipes, which are satisfactory to as good as any including the higher end. I really enjoy plucking the Yello-Bole and Kaywoodie off the rack, in rotation with the several higher end pipes. I like not every pipe being some kind of a savings and investment project, and having pipes that wouldn't be a financial loss to lose. Still, rows of thirty pipes, all high end and slowly acquired has its charm and is an option to be considered.

 

[mackeson]

No apologies needed jerwynn. I wish you the best with your health

 

[mso489]

jerwynn, I'm concerned about your health and I hope you will do everything you can to get better. Don't feel you have to keep smoking to keep posting, if it provides some support and not too much temptation. The main thing now is to find way to breathe better. Take good care of yourself.

 

[mawnansmiff]

I was diagnosed with emphysema and liver disease two years ago and have suffered from depression for at least ten years. That on top of my spinal injury too but I just soldier on...it's all one can do.
At the end of the day, when my number is up it is up, but I'll be buggered if I will allow any of the above to prevent me from enjoying the few pleasures I have left to me.
So Jerwynn, I fully understand your position and your feelings but you just have to accept things as they are, go with the flow and keep soldiering on chum...it's all we can do ::
Regards,
Jay.

 

[jpmcwjr]

Yes, what Tom says above. All best wishes, and do hang in there!!
Edit: And what Jay adds.

 

[pipesmokingtom]

Of course, no apology needed.
It's not an potential answer I considered when I posited the question, but it's certainly as valid as any other

 

[jerwynn]

First, thank you all from the bottom of my heart! For your kindness, concern, wise counsels, and acceptance of course. I feel such a terrible irony in it all. I, like so many, including guys I’ve read here, have had severe difficulties with depression throughout my adult life… 30+ years treatments, up to and through a long, brutal course of ECT and the like. And you know what? One of the MOST effective helps, bar none, has been the convivial pipe! Over the past several years, I could be in suicidal sloughs of despond, and struggle to even so much as lift the pipe, not even so far as to actually light, tamp, and smoke it… but once I’d make it over that little Everest, the pipe, tobacco, and the whole schtick would lift me to totally different and wonderful places and the sloughs of despond would go back to hell where it came from in the first place. At one point, a local doc was busting on me for pipe-smoking and until I asserted it both saved my life on numerous occasions, and was far more cost-effective and far more quickly pharmacologically effective than all the $1000/month hi-tech chemicals with bizarre names out there that we’ve shoved down my throat.
So now I can’t breathe. It just ain’t fair. I’ve been around way long enough to know that life isn’t even meant to be fair… but CRIMINY!!! Cut us a break here!!(He rails at the heavens!)
I can’t even begin to tell you all how much you’ve meant to me over the past 5 years… and you didn’t even know it!(even as I was mainly a tacet lurker cuz I’m also bashful) Here there is such generally happy banter over such happy subject matter that has nothing to do with damnable election BS, wars and rumors of wars, plague, famine, pestilence, etc etc etc. Pipesmagazine and this forum, and also our wonderful friends on the blogs and store over at Smokingpipes.com have given me such endless hours of fun, humor, learning, total immersion happy escapism, mellow meditation time, and DELICIOUS reads at all levels of our august hobby and obsession. I don’t know what I’d do without it! Once before I had a huge scare and panicked and donated nearly all my tobacco and all but my core pipes away… I was happy to do it… but also with some general constitutional regrets later.
Anyways, I’m sorry to have prattled on at such length. I had promised myself never to get into any of this in a public forum… but then I had such fun getting to know pipesmokingtom over the past couple weeks, and cobguy and shaintiques and so many generous others here. After such a hard night, I was scared of the potential loss of it all. But then there were also mso’s wise as always words of equanimity and temperate perspective. Salvation from you all again! THANK YOU!!