Im going to put a disclaimer and apologize for typos and such right away, im on my phone and miss a lot of them.
Not too terribly long ago, there were quite a few discussions on young pipers and what would happen to pipes in the future. Being a young piper myself (18), I resd quite a few of them. The general consensus was that piping was a trend among hipsters, and that the current resurgence of popularity of it would die out and the kids would move on. Quite a few of you believed that once the currently 40+ crowd passed on that piping would die with them, at least in North America.
I couldnt necesarily disagree, and came to terms that I might witness the end of piping before my days are done. But recently I have a lot of reason to believe otherwise. Not to get too sappy here, but while this topic was discussed, I had few friends. I moved a year ago and have been working nonstop since, i rarely keep in touch with my old buddies, so I had little information to contradict the theory. But last week I went back to my hometown for a whole week off and ran into all sorts of old buddies. Things have changed. Everybodys changed. Especially in how they act around me, now my older friends are unafraid to share with me their love of tobacco.
I know what youre thinking: cigarettes. Youre wrong! Only two old friends smoke. But nearly everybody I ran into? They all love cigars now, including an old friend who is a girl. The kicker? She prefers her pipe to cigars. I smoked my pipe a lot down there, got a lot of compliments, and discovered that many friends also enjoy the pipe, albeit less frequently than myself. More nights then not were spent catching up with friends over cigars or pipes. My friends who smoked cigars but not pipes started saying theyd like to try it, and seemed very genuine in their interest. I went down with a 10 pipe grab bag to give out to my piping fiends; and ended up giving all but three to new pipers!
And NONE of these people are hipsters. Theyre all good Montana boys and girls; they dont follow trends. Im telljng you guys, pipes and cigars are here to stay. He numbers are going to keep climbing. Its not leaving us yet. Be prepared for many pipers to come in the next generation. I just wanted to share my observations as a young piper, and Im happy to share that Im not the only one.
Not too terribly long ago, there were quite a few discussions on young pipers and what would happen to pipes in the future. Being a young piper myself (18), I resd quite a few of them. The general consensus was that piping was a trend among hipsters, and that the current resurgence of popularity of it would die out and the kids would move on. Quite a few of you believed that once the currently 40+ crowd passed on that piping would die with them, at least in North America.
I couldnt necesarily disagree, and came to terms that I might witness the end of piping before my days are done. But recently I have a lot of reason to believe otherwise. Not to get too sappy here, but while this topic was discussed, I had few friends. I moved a year ago and have been working nonstop since, i rarely keep in touch with my old buddies, so I had little information to contradict the theory. But last week I went back to my hometown for a whole week off and ran into all sorts of old buddies. Things have changed. Everybodys changed. Especially in how they act around me, now my older friends are unafraid to share with me their love of tobacco.
I know what youre thinking: cigarettes. Youre wrong! Only two old friends smoke. But nearly everybody I ran into? They all love cigars now, including an old friend who is a girl. The kicker? She prefers her pipe to cigars. I smoked my pipe a lot down there, got a lot of compliments, and discovered that many friends also enjoy the pipe, albeit less frequently than myself. More nights then not were spent catching up with friends over cigars or pipes. My friends who smoked cigars but not pipes started saying theyd like to try it, and seemed very genuine in their interest. I went down with a 10 pipe grab bag to give out to my piping fiends; and ended up giving all but three to new pipers!
And NONE of these people are hipsters. Theyre all good Montana boys and girls; they dont follow trends. Im telljng you guys, pipes and cigars are here to stay. He numbers are going to keep climbing. Its not leaving us yet. Be prepared for many pipers to come in the next generation. I just wanted to share my observations as a young piper, and Im happy to share that Im not the only one.
