Chisel this in stone for the site masthead as a warning to outsiders.
This is the most succinct description of this forum that I've ever read. This shit should win a Pulitzer.
As someone who doesn't smoke to the bottom of the bowl, I can confirm that every time I don't smoke all the way to the bottom (which is almost every time I smoke a pipe) a very muscular Bulgarian man climbs out of my pipe and starts trying to challenge me to a wrestling match. I don't speak Bulgarian but I'm able to infer what he means through his demonstrative way of speaking. We've become friends over the past few years since I usually don't quite finish all of the tobacco so now I purposely don't finish pipes just so we can hang out.
It might lead to a general disregard for pursuing the best path in life, which in turn might cause a man to become a little too careless with his habits, and after a series of self induced misfortunes he might wind up on Skid Row—-
See, many of us just have a different outlook. I know that I just don't believe in this breaking in process... period. I just smoke the pipe from first smoke on. All of this stuff you are talking about... I have never seen any evidence of it.
Moral to the story is, don't be a farmboy. Go live somewhere, where you can do better for yourself.Yesterday I taught my son again the “Parable of Georgia and the Boy in Bib Overalls” on Elmer’s 60. It’s one of his favorites.
View attachment 259753
My Grandfather LeRoy Briggs was a very handsome man and he had a very handsome brother named Elmer, who was by all accounts a pool shark and a gambler and bad to fight. But after a man in Harrisonville Missouri in 1908 almost killed “Elm” he paid heed to his mother and married a beautiful young girl named Cora, which led in turn to the suicide of Orbie, the sister of my grandmother, over her loss of Elmer.
The family built Elmer and Cora a home and gave him 60 acres.
A year or so later little Georgia was born, and by all accounts was an angel waking the earth. Georgia grew up to be a raving beauty with long locks of flaming auburn hair and a face and figure to match, and she married a good boy from a good family and had a son in due time, but the boy saw no sense in dressing up to accompany Georgia to town. He’d be out with the most radiantly beautiful girl in the county dressed in bib overalls with no shirt.
One day in 1929 a young doctor from Chicago had installed the new X ray machines in the new hospital and was waiting for the north bound train to take him home.
At the same time our family arrived with Cora staying home to care for Georgia’s croupy baby to greet a relative arriving on the train, and after the train pulled away, Georgia was nowhere to be found.
The stationmaster told the boy in bib overalls and no shirt the sad tidings that the doctor had bought Georgia a ticket and Georgia, was gone.
The boy was grief stricken and put his faith in the Lord and prayed for Georgia to return home, and in a month or so she did return home, in a long Packard with two spare tires on the fenders and lots of chrome, took her baby from Cora, returned to Chicago, divorced the boy in bib overalls and no shirt, and the doctor adopted the boy who also became a doctor in Chicago.
My first wife was a beautiful girl whose Daddy owned a dozen banks.
Whenever I’d leave the house not very well dressed, my mother would ask me-
Are you taking Georgia, to meet a train?.
Very true...but with the caveat that we're not allowed to discuss stuff that really matters. When you try that is when you really get your balls busted.
I don't have time to read his stories, so if you could please just keep posting a one sentence moral I for one really appreciate it!
I gave up actually trying to figure out what he means when he tags me like this in these long winded tales. I do read them, but best I can tell, his doc needs to increase his cholinesterase inhibitors.
Moral was you’ll never keep a better wife than you dress for.Moral to the story is, don't be a farmboy. Go live somewhere, where you can do better for yourself.
Lets say, my neighbor comes over all the time and tells me that I should pressure wash my driveway or else my driveway will need more repairs and my truck will make it start cracking. 20 years of living next to this yahoo and my driveway is fine, perfectly fine. He comes over one day to tell me to pressure wash my driveway, so I shoot him in the face with my 20 gauge and go to prison. Then his wife tells the new neighbors, “if the last guy who lived here had of just pressure washed his driveway…”Moral was you’ll never keep a better wife than you dress for.
If you get a beautiful pipe, break it in the right way.
All the excuses to almost break it all the way in, are sort of hollow, you know?
Now I'm confused. Are you pressure cleaning your driveway or not?These days I use meer chips or Nording Keystones with every bowl.
The tobacco smokes down to ash with little or no dottle most times.
With those meer chips or Keystones in place, it ain't going to smoke to the bottom.
Does it make a difference to the pipe ? Not that I am aware of.
But I do get a better smoke out of each bowl.
Moral : "Do what you do. So long as your smoke is enjoyable and satisfying"
No right or wrong
Jeez! Didn’t you read? He uses meer chips and keystones. You don’t have to pressure wash a gravel driveway.
Wow! That's shallow! "Is that what you're going to wear tonight?" Is how my wife voiced her opinion of my sartorial choice when going out into public.
Awesome, thanks. I literally struggle with this daily. Never sure if I'm doing my pipes a favor or disservice towards the end. I think I might be chucking more dottle now. I always want to get that pure white ash lining the whole bowl but I guarantee that I'm charring the airway sometimes. It probably doesn't matter, I just love to think about the "right way." Which doesn't exist, and I'll never get there, but I'm an idealist.Smoking Your Pipe To The Bottom Of The Bowl | Smokingpipes.com
Should you smoke your pipe to the bottom of the bowl? We're covering the question with advice from a range of expert pipemakers.www.smokingpipes.com
Here's an interesting article on the subject in case you haven't checked it out already. I usually don't smoke all the way to the bottom myself but I know there are some that do. I've always likened smoking a pipe all the way to the bottom like smoking a cigarette all the way down to the filter.
