It's official - I'm an expert pipe smoker.

[hakchuma]

2 years ago from today I began smoking a pipe. I smoke around 5 bowls a day if I can find the time but usually only 3.
Instead of fearing the bottom of the bowl I look forward to it and slowly relish it.

I learned how to minimize tongue bite enough to nearly finish a bowl with very little dottle.
I've acquired 17 corn cobs, 18 brairs, 2 maple MM, 1 falcon and three broken pipes of my own doing.
I've collected over 50lbs of quality tobacco.
I've learned that I hate maintaining lighters.
I've learned that the true secret to enjoying a pipe is to recognize the time invested in smoking a bowl. An hour smoking a bowl creates a relationship with your baccy and your pipe. You become very aware of the tobacco and all of its stages of its smoking attributes.
Once the fire goes out ya cannot help but lament.

 

[tarheel1]

I dont think I will ever be an expert pipe smoker. I have been smoking a pipe for 17 years now and still learn something new every day.

 

[jpmcwjr]

Congratulations! For $250, we'll create a bronze plaque in honor of this milestone. Send full name, address, PINs, and a cashier's check to......
Seriously, now, nice post. Thank you.

 

[hakchuma]

Thanks jpmcwjr! Tarheel1 will be sending the check!

 

[bigpond]

The fool thinks himself to be wise, but the wise man knows himself to be a fool.

--William Shakespeare

 

[hakchuma]

William was a douche bag. And a prissy.

 

[ray47]

I've been smoking a pipe for over 30 yrs and I'm still learning something new.

 

[didimauw]

Just as soon as I think I finally "understand" it, the next day when I'm smoking, I go " Oh..."

 

[bigpond]

Every great thinker is someone else's moron.

Umberto Eco

This is a good one

When you're arguing with a fool, make sure he isn't doing the same thing.

 

[clickklick]

Congrats on your self proclaimed expertness! I hope you continue to enjoy the things you love.

 

[cynicismandsugar]

Did you get a black belt?! ... I want a black belt!

 

[easterntraveler]

Once I saw the post, I knew people would be harassing the hell out of you. Pretty funny actually. Anyway I am no expert and the last quarter of the bowl seems to be a problem. I do remember how it felt to finally be able to smoke my pipe without 100 relights. Congrats, now you can share your wisdom with the rest of us.

 

[michaelmirza]

An expert and also very humble. :wink:
I hate dealing with lighters too, so I stick to the simple, faithful, and ritualistic use of matches. Glad to know someone further down the road sees some of the potential issues with lighters that I'm trying to avoid in advance.

 

[shikano53]

Congrats! I have a cheap Vertigo lighter that I purchased when I started in May and it works perfect. It must be defective. 8O

 

[rhoadsie]

Congrats on the achievement, must be quite satisfying.
Now that you've got pipe smoking licked, what are you going to tackle next?

 

[newbroom]

Most mechanical devices are at the mercy of their operators....if you get my drift.

(I still swear by the hemp wick, which I do light with a torch.)

 

[misterlowercase]

I am an aspirant codger.
Hopefully one day I will arrive.
I'm predominantly a plug smoker,

but cut my plugs with a fancy Yankee Slicer implement (a special little guillotine thing) which makes it all too easy,

a true codger uses a simple knife with calm expertise.
I liked reading this story:

Barbour knives were special instruments in the world I grew up in the day before yesterday. Only special men, learned men, invariably pipesmokers, owned and used them. They were not for schoolboys nor for most ordinary men. Schoolboys possessed cheap gaudy-flanked penknives, usually supplied by Santa Claus. A remarkable number of these had the figure of a Canadian Mountie in his red jacket inscribed on them. All had bright silver blades. All of the blades were so blunt that you could not cut butter with them in midsummer. That's a fact.
The Barbour men in our parish would come into our country shop late in the evenings of my boyhood. They came to buy their Half-Quarters. Yes, that's not an error, they would ask you for a Half-Quarter. This was plug tobacco. It came in four ounce blocks, powerfully aromatic and compacted, and the Half-Quarter was the half of one - two ounces. We had a special little guillotine thing for cutting the block exactly in half. You needed that because every fraction of an ounce was special. The eyes watching the guillotine were as sharp as the blades of the Barbour - maybe even sharper!
You'd cut and they'd pay and they'd always fill their pipe before leaving the shop, hipped against the wooden counter, hand fishing into the frock coat pocket, (yes frock coat! - to us a jacket), and you'd watch like a hawk, with amazement, with awe even, at the ease with which either of the two Barbour blades pared off the whorls of redolent tobacco from a plug whose trade name was Walnut and whose surface was just as hard. No problem at all to the Sheffield blades. They just glided through it, the opening element of a ritual which afterwards saw the shavings of plug being ground into a soft fibrous mass between two horny palms, effortlessly, the opened knife pointing skywards the while, and then the bowl of the pipe being filled, the match applied. And, most often, the steel storm lid being put over the bowl before the smoking Barbour man set off for home on his High Nellie bicycle, tendrils of smoke trailing behind. I see them now, kings of the Raleigh bike saddles, tall spare men, belted gabardine coats and hats, proud and dignified on their own range as the Mounties on the plasticated flanks of our blunt penknives.
Full article:

http://www.emigrant.ie/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=37305&Itemid=17

 

[hakchuma]

the true face of people come out when you describe your own achievements as if they would rather you slither in squalor.
Not surprised as they describe themselves.

 

[cossackjack]

Most sincere congrats, Hakchuma.

Having smoked a pipe since 1976, I consider myself a "seasoned smoker". Experienced, yes. Expert, probably not. Semantics, I think.

Also, I am a certified codger & curmudgeon (at least according to my wife & sons).

Contrary to other posts, expertise does not preclude continued learning, in fact it demands it.

 

[Chasing Embers]

Twenty-four years here. Accomplished? Yes. Jedi piper? Far from.