Social Smoke

[deathmetal]

Maybe Alabama is just way more pipe oriented than where you guys are.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ye5BuYf8q4o

 

[cosmicfolklore]

Crash, I had a lady set down next to me in Birmingham, started with the obligatory, "My father used to smoke a pipe..." Then she started telling me about all of the horrible things that have happened in her life from abuse to her child being taken away from her by gangsters. It was stuff that warranted more than a nod for my participation. For a while there I was on a roll. Every time I sat down to smoke outdoors, someone would plop down and start telling me their deepest darkest secrets. I was considering writing a book about a pipe smoking detective, where he didn't have to actually go do anything to solve a crime, except setting outside and firing up a bowl, and the witnesses would line up to tell him what they know. A pipesmoking superpower of some sort.

 

[crashthegrey]

Cosmic, that is incredible. I'd read that book, especially knowing that some little bit of it would be based on your real conversations, but hidden within the context of the book. I have not had it happen to that extent, but people definitely open up to a man smoking a pipe.

 

[warren]

The critters I spend my time with are not, as a rule, smokers. I have seen some smoking (smoldering?) when fleeing wild fires.

 

[Chasing Embers]

Every time I sat down to smoke outdoors, someone would plop down and start telling me their deepest darkest secrets.

I get that sometimes at work. Like a pipe smoker is an obligatory shoulder.

 

[PaulTheScandinavian]

Alabama is a such a interesting State,I only have a minor family connection(cousin of mine)to TX land.

Startled to learn Mr Warren is located in Alaska State,amazing

 

[seagullplayer]

The guy up the road has one in his mouth all the time.

He is mostly a farmer only smokes half and half.
I take note when I see it elsewhere, it doesn't take much paper to keep count.

 

[jorchamp]

Four or five of us get together to play chess, chat, drink and smoke our pipes. Social smoking is totally different flavor experience from solitaire smoking. It ismore like background music that occasionally comes to our attention and then fakes back. I think more enjoyable than the constant presence.

 

[saltedplug]

Two, a middle-aged man who when asked what pipe he was smoking said, with sneer, "Dunhill."

A guy at a mall clenching a Savinelli Hercules.

 

[deathmetal]

Every time I sat down to smoke outdoors, someone would plop down and start telling me their deepest darkest secrets.

Hmm.

I’m inclined to reserve all judgments, a habit that has opened up many curious natures to me and also made me the victim of not a few veteran bores. The abnormal mind is quick to detect and attach itself to this quality when it appears in a normal person, and so it came about that in college I was unjustly accused of being a politician, because I was privy to the secret griefs of wild, unknown men. Most of the confidences were unsought — frequently I have feigned sleep, preoccupation, or a hostile levity when I realized by some unmistakable sign that an intimate revelation was quivering on the horizon; for the intimate revelations of young men, or at least the terms in which they express them, are usually plagiaristic and marred by obvious suppressions. Reserving judgments is a matter of infinite hope.

 

[mithrandir]

Not very often. which is a shame, I always have positive comments when I smoke in public. I even have people come and stand close just so they can smell the smoke.

 

[cosmicfolklore]

I even have people come and stand close just so they can smell the smoke.

Isn't that wonderful? As an ex-cigarette smoker, it amazes me when this happens. As long as they don't add that their grandfather also smoked a pipe, just like me... uggg.
Love the Gatsby quote, DM. I just wish rich people took me under their wing and lavished lots of money on me, as they whine about their girlfriends.

 

[deathmetal]

Love the Gatsby quote, DM.

A man of taste and education, I see. Great book, even if American high school teachers have ruined it for three generations of students. Not considered a success in its time.
My advice to all people about socializing: do not look for things in common, look for ways to kickstart a conversation that are generic and eventually run deep.
Life is life, and everyone living it can relate.

 

[warren]

My advice to socializing with a stranger is: Read the body language first. Not all pipe smokers wish to socialize. I can do "civil". I generally do not to "social."

 

[cosmicfolklore]

I'm no expert on body language. I basically just smoke setting like I am on the crapper and scratch my crotch a lot. Whatever that means, it seems to attract a "certain" demographic.

 

[warren]

Well Cosmic, if the door's open and your knees are apart I'd say ... you appear accepting to a stranger starting a conversation. Your case is a gray area as it's hard to sit on the old crapper with legs crossed and arms folded and still get down to business.

 

[twangthang]

Just recently I met a guy walking on the bike path thoughtfully smoking a pipe. I approached him and struck up a conversation. I quickly got that he was living in a group home or something and his shrink suggested he smoke a pipe. I didn't get into the reasoning, but he told me he had been smoking for some time and had a brair pipe and a meershaum pipe. I didn't get what blend he was smoking at the time, but it smelled like an OTC and he obviously was enjoying it. He told me that used to love Balkan Sobraine, but hadn't had it for years.

My next walk I brought a tin of Black House I had laying around. Figured it was the closest blend I had and he would appreciate it.

When I saw him and gave him the tin he really wanted to pay me for it. I told him to just take it and just enjoy it. He pocketed it and we parted ways.

Fast forward a couple of weeks and I saw him on the path. He told me he was unable to open the tin. I tried to explain how to pry open the lid with a coin and he told me he knew, but somehow, although he insisted he understood the concept... He didn't get to the goodies inside.

Maybe if I see him again I will have bring the tin along and I will crack it for him.

The last encounter I had with a pipe smoker was so much easier.

 

[cosmicfolklore]

That's great, good on you, Twang. I have to admit, that I have gotten frustrated myself and used a paint can opener on a tin or two. It buggers up the tin, but at least I get to smoke. Maybe open the tin before you give it to him next time.
I have a friend in the neighborhood that I check on a couple of times a week that won't smoke anything but Prince Albert. He absolutely refuses. He also has never called me by my name, just expletives. Ha ha, but that's alright. At a certain age, you can get away with that.