I was your city this fall, and visited Kremer's tobacco shop while I was there. I treated myself to a balkan house blend they had in stock, and enjoyed it with another pipe smoker on their back porch. Cool place to smoke a bowl (when the weather permits)Here in Louisville (aside from higher smoking rates, which accounts for a likely slightly above avg per capita pipe smokers too) we have the "southern Baptist seminary" which is like the largest Baptist bible college in the whole damn world. I've heard the president there smokes a pipe - therefore many of his acolytes mimic his ways.
They're easy to pick out when the come through the shoppe.
We've even had a hand full over the years smoke with us. There's one in particular that spits. A spitter.
Anyway.. yes it's always fun to encounter another in public.
To be honest, I was expecting this to be this sort of "run into"...
I've seen a few people in vehicles smoking pipes and I've certainly smelled people smoking pipes. Oh and once I saw an old guy leaving burger king and lighting up his pipe. I wanted to asking him what he was smoking because it was the blandest smelling pipe tobacco I have ever smelled (vapes smell stronger).I saw a guy smoking a pipe in the wild once too. He was driving a truck. It was in the city. It also happened to be IPSD which I figured must explain such a freak occurrence. Other than that, I've only seen a couple other pipe smokers at the local cigar club, but I avoided eye contact with them. Didn't want to spook them or anything.
if I know I am going some where I can smoke but the company is mixed I am more likely to consider room note. Not the worst excuse to bring out the aromatics.I'm sure some of those gents keep their better pipes and other blends at home. Number of members carry pipes they don't mind damaging and blends that won't tick off strangers.
This is the most casual reaction I've ever seen to being on trial for manslaughter (don't worry you got this one beat, no cares about Jeff we're all better off without him). But still that's pretty casual.Just yesterday, I had to run to the courthouse for a thing,
Oh gosh I've worked with so many work release guys. They're funny because they're usually the happiest person at the job. I guess cause they're the only people there whose day is better because they're at work. And usually they are on their best behavior because they don't want to lose the job.and passed a guy smoking his pipe out front. I made sure to fire up my pipe as I walked back out, we nodded. I didn't want to engage him, just in case he was work release or something, ha ha.
I think the best part of it was his confirmation that there are more pipe smokers around but just not out and about as much. I think part of it is geography and not just culture but also I think where it's warm people are more likely to sit on their porch or stand around outside.But, we have quite a few pipesmokers in this part of Alabama. I see them so often that it more becomes odd to hear how you guys react when you do see another pipesmoker "in the wild."
my favorite was I missed you, but watch out cause I've been visiting the range recently.That's one of those "dad joke" kind of things I always keep in my back pocket:
"I ran into so-and-so at the grocery store."
"Oh no!! Are they alright?"
It's funny smoking is banned on the campus (unless you're a part of the Union, which we are, so we can. The worst thing anyone has said to me about my smoking is asking me to move along. Weirdiest thing for me is when I started if a girl walked up to me about my pipe it was to say her dad or granddad smoked a pipe and thanks for reminding her of him... Now they ask advice for picking up a pipe and learn to smoke and where to buy stuff and all that.It's complicated. All the places and areas and communities that ban smoking make it a somewhat furtive activity, so we hide it even when that's not necessary.
Arguably, pipe smoking attracts people who are independent minded and often not that sociable anyway. And old fellas tend not to suffer fools gladly, and they tend to suspect that most people fit that category, possibly also themselves.
One older guy, about my own age actually, who I encountered in the grocery store parking lot, sort of fled when I asked him about his pipe and tobacco. Over his shoulder in rapid retreat, he did disclose he was smoking Prince Albert. Maybe he was just in a hurry anyway.
At my local independent pipe shop I occasionally eavesdrop on the smoking table as I browse the merchandise, the pipe wall, and the tins of blends. I'm usually too engaged with window shopping, and sometimes I just don't want to engage that particular conversation, whatever it is.
Which is most fun when it's because they take the debate style of obstinate bluster over having an argument. Most fun you can have with that is telling them that you're under zero obligation to engage in any debate with them. If they insist and won't leave you alone start debating them about the most important issue in the world which is the best Sufi poet!Not everyone has the open-mindedness to engage in a balanced conversation rather than a heated debate. I shrug. Such is life.
February 20th.Maybe we need a "Pipe Smoker's Day", where all us guys make a point of smoking our pipes in public. We can spice it up a bit by having a tradition that if anyone objects to our pipes we beat them soundly around the head and shoulders with a stick.
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Awesome.. what brought you to louisville?I was your city this fall, and visited Kremer's tobacco shop while I was there. I treated myself to a balkan house blend they had in stock, and enjoyed it with another pipe smoker on their back porch. Cool place to smoke a bowl (when the weather permits)
I just went in to look around (yeah, sure ) with an eye out for a small/narrow bowl pipe, something I might dedicate to virginias. The shopkeeper, Alicia, led me to a Peterson deluxe system pipe. It had been there for a while, the silver ring was a bit tarnished. But, I liked the way it looked and felt, and I had been curious to try a p-lip pipe, so I bought it.Awesome.. what brought you to louisville?
I wonder who you met.