Stories of Past Pipe Smokers.

[didimauw]

I've been wanting to start a new thread about past pipe smokers and their smoking routines, and stories you have or heard in general. Hearing about @mso489 s dad smoking granger for 50 years, is exactly the kind of thing I want to hear about.

What pipe smoking stories do you have? Family, friends, teachers, doctors?

Let's hear them!

Mso, add yours here too!

 

[Sweet Home Alabama]

Merle Dunlap was ready up in years when I was a child. He and his wife lived in a small house by the side of the road that was named after his family.

For lack of land he kept his car, a ‘40’s something sedan in a garage barely wide enough to accommodate the big fendered automobile

Their house had water from a hand cranked pump, but no plumbing otherwise.

I think he might have worked at a factory in the city .
Anyway, he smoked a briar looking pipe with Prince Albert and he looked naked without it. I suspect he bought them at the drug store . Having little, I doubt he had but two or three pipes to his name.

 

[Morrison Jeremiah]

My Uncle Arthur was a dedicated pipe smoker.
He was a dispatch Rider during World War II, and somewhere in the family album there's a picture of him on his Brough Superior with a pipe firmly clenched.

He had a huge handlebar moustache. One day he must have noticed me watching him smoking his pipe. He very slowly removed the pipe from his mouth with a hand that could fell an ox, and said in his deep gruff voice " Oh, a good sweet briar boy, there's nothing like it. "

Somehow those words have stuck with me.

 

[Chasing Embers]

Only pipe smoker in the family that I've ever known of.

 

[condorlover1]

Everyone in my family. I have some amusing stories some of which are not exactly PC in this day and age. Seems as a group we were known for pipes and ancient motorcycles. I've owned 2 'Rough Inferiors' over the years before they became crazy money. Somewhere on here is a picture of me with my 1936 BS SS80 taken in my early 20s. I also own a pre-war 350 Matchless that was my everyday transport from aged 18. I believe they were popular with the DR in the army during WW2. I'll post some pipe anecdotes on here later.

 

[lawdawg]

For years, my step dad smoked a single Peterson p-lip pipe and some bulk aromatic from a local shop. I believe now that it was 1-Q. He also smoked cigarettes, and I think the pipe was sort of a half-assed attempt to quit the coffin nails. Sometimes, for months, he would only smoke his pipe. Other times, it was a mix of pipes and cigarettes.

He has some health issues, and eventually, he had to have heart surgery, which was 10 years or so ago. On doctor's orders, he quit both his pipe and cigarettes. He has said several times that if he makes it to 75, he's going to start smoking again He's the only person I've ever heard of who quit smoking and actively plans to start back up. He'll be 75 in a couple years and is in pretty good health (all things considered), so there is every reason to think he'll make it to 75 and beyond.

If he starts back up, I'll be sure to give him a few pipes and some different blends to try.

 

[anotherbob]

I guess what I remember as a kid would be a few adults that smoked pipes and it was always captain black. I loved the smell so much. And I remember finding the dottle which was more a plug of wet compressed tobacco then what I get when I dump my pipe. It seemed so cool, now I know it's fun but maybe not so cool .

 

[Morrison Jeremiah]

Everyone in my family. I have some amusing stories some of which are not exactly PC in this day and age. Seems as a group we were known for pipes and ancient motorcycles. I've owned 2 'Rough Inferiors' over the years before they became crazy money. Somewhere on here is a picture of me with my 1936 BS SS80 taken in my early 20s. I also own a pre-war 350 Matchless that was my everyday transport from aged 18. I believe they were popular with the DR in the army during WW2. I'll post some pipe anecdotes on here later.

I love the 350 Matchless from all the eras. until they finally stopped making them.
A proper greaser's bike.

Yeah, let's have the anecdotes, never mind the PC

 

[didimauw]

Bump for new members! Let's hear some true pipe smoking stories!

 

[bullet08]

No stories. Just bits and pieces from the memories. First one is really hard to recall. Must have been when I was 4 or 5. Next door neighbor was an American couple. I remember Half &Half tub. Then when I was 12, I remember my father with Half & Half pouch and a pipe with spade logo on the stem. Next one was my 9th grade teacher with a pipe clenched in classroom. I'm not sure what the rule was, but knew few teachers who smoked in classroom before class. Heard my 7th grade teacher passed away due to lung cancer. He was also my music teacher and a heavy cigarette smoker. He tried to teach us guitar. I really suck at string instruments.

 

[alaskanpiper]

Only one I’ve got is my Dad’s old Dr. Grabow El Dorado Ajustomatic. He turns 80 in March. Up here there is a large oil field on the Arctic Coast (colloquially referred to as “The North Slope” or just “The Slope” even though it’s totally flat) called Prudhoe Bay. Field workers typically work a 2 week on/2 week off rotation, 7 days a week, 12 hours a day. I worked up there for 8 years, just like my dad did when he was young. A while ago when I picked up pipe smoking he told me he used to smoke this pipe he inherited from a family member when he was up there, but refrain at home. In the very same outdoor smoking shack I did. A while back he found his old pipe when cleaning out his old desk cabinets at work and gave it to me. I cleaned about 30 years worth of oxidation off the stem and a sheen of dirt off the bowl, and it remains a proud part of my collection today.

 

[warren]

Great story! Great gift!

Incidentally, it's called the North Slope because it's on the North slope of Brooks Range and does indeed slope towards the ocean or, the two minor seas of the Arctic Ocean to be more specific.

 

[alaskanpiper]

Great story! Great gift!

Incidentally, it's called the North Slope because it's on the North slope of Brooks Range and does indeed slope towards the ocean or, the two minor seas of the Arctic Ocean to be more specific.

Yeah, I’m aware of the origin of the nomenclature, was simply pointing out that when someone says “I work on the slope”, they typically mean Prudhoe Bay or the surrounding area. Which slopes about as much as a football field. The “actual” northern slopes of the Brooks Range are 80 miles to the south. I often feel the need to briefly explain as when lower-48 folks hear the term they imagine a mountainous landscape, or occasionally think you mean a ski resort

 

[jndyer]

My great uncle was an avid pipe smoker. Back in the day when he was a young man he would herd sheep in the mountains of Central Oregon and smoked a pipe to keep his sanity due to being alone with the sheep out in the middle of nowhere and for weeks at a time. Due to his remote location he would carve his own corncob pipes including the willow bush stems.

Years later, when I was just. a lad, you would always find Uncle Bus with a pipe in his mouth. He would only ever own one pipe at a time and when it go too ragged he would throw the pipe into the fire and go to town to buy a new pipe. I still remember the sweet smell of his pipe smoke and anytime I smell cherry tobacco or PA (his tobacco of choice was a mixture of PA and Paladin) it brings back all those memories of him at my parents house, sitting around a camp fire or elk camp.

One thing you could count on was if Uncle Bus turned his pipe upside down, it was sure to rain in the next few minutes. I was always amazed that tobacco would never fall out.

When I first started smoking a pipe, which was some 20 years after my great uncle passed away, I felt like a complete failure due to the number of relights I would need to get through one bowl. I felt this way because typically Uncle Bus would smoke a bowl from start to finish with only one match. Heck, he was known to set the pipe down for several minutes and pick it back up and it was still burning. Fifteen plus years later I can mostly smoke a bowl with only a couple of lights; however, I have never had a pipe that would stay lit for the 10-15 minutes that my uncle would leave his pipe unattended.

 

[DeerparkDays]

My Uncle Denis.
He was the oldest of 4 kids born into a farming family in Killarney, Co Kerry, Ireland. In rural Ireland, in those times, the eldest would be sent to school and the youngest would take over the farm. Well when he was 13 his dad came in from the fields for dinner (lunch) and he went up to bed for a short lie down before the meal. When the meal was ready Nana went up to fetch him and he was with the lord after a heart attack took him. Denis’ life changed then, his school days were finished and he stayed on the farm as Nana couldn’t do it alone and raise 4 children. My Dad, the youngest son was sent to school instead.

Denis always had a pipe when I was young (we emigrated to NZ when I was 10). My aunts would tell me when he went to sleep he had the pipe in his mouth.

He is a typical Irish bachelor, living a quiet life in an old way with none of the tech that we all use. I often think of him. Out of interest he quit smoking overnight around 15 years ago when the next door neighbour, Paddy, got cancer. Paddy passed on only 3 years ago at a fine age might I add.

Perhaps if granddad had not passed on, Denis might have gone to school and later raised a family, and it might have been my Dad who stayed on the farm and became a bachelor.

Sorry I have probably burbled on. I must write to Denis……

 

[Franco Pipenbeans]

This chap, my Grandad: Harry Brook ,late of His Majesties 33rd Regiment of Foot, the Duke of Wellington’s (photo taken somewhere in North Africa, 1942).

I remember, as a little chap, being allowed to smell at his ‘bacca pouch if I had been “a good lad”. This progressed to us sitting at the rough dining table in my grandparents little cottage, mixing tobacco on a piece of newspaper; usually Erinmore and Condor in equal measure.

He only had three pipes at once, and, of those three pipes he only really smoked one, which I still have to this day and use it solely for smoking St Bruno flake now.

He taught me the benefits of smoking flakes, he taught me how to rub them out or fold and stuff them, he taught me the pleasure of a happy half an hour in the haze of smoke as it drifts through the air.

He taught me so much more than that to boot.

I never once saw him buy a pipe cleaner, let alone run one through a pipe and God forbid he ever went anywhere near one with any alcohol or a reamer!

He used to explain how pipe tobacco was more economical than any other type of tobacco product, “Except snuff - I’ve had a can of that medicated stuff in this drawer for, oh, it must be getting on 20 years…but it’s an absolute bugger on a windy day.”

I still miss him to this day; I suppose I always will.

Happy pipes people.

 

[MikeDub]

My tobacco journey started with smoking cigars with my dad by the fire pit in my backyard after graduating high school. One visit to the tobacco shop I decided that I was going to take up a pipe and bought some cherry aromatic tobacco to go with it.

When I got home that night, my dad laughed because unbeknownst to me, his dad smoked a pipe all day every day, and his favorite was a particular cherry blend that he smoked consistently.

Unlike my cigar smoking apostate father, I’m proudly carrying on the pipe smoking tradition in our family. My grandpa died when I was about 2, so he knew me but I don’t have any memories of him. From what my parents have shared, I’m a spitting image of my grandpa, both in looks and attitude.

Thanks to this thread I’ll throw in a cherry flavored aromatic in with my next tobacco order as an homage to the grandpa I share so much with but never knew.

 

[sjohnston0311]

My maternal grandfather was a pipe smoker well before I was born. Apparently at some point when my mother was a child, his dentist found some sores in his mouth that were possibly pre-cancerous. This scared the crap out of him and he immediately came home and threw away all of his pipes and tobacco and never smoked again. He used to smoke Country Doctor, and my mother has talked about how wonderful his pipe tobacco used to smell. Her grandfather on the other hand smoked something that she described as smelling so sickly sweet that it made her feel ill. I often wonder what type of tobacco this could have been.

My father had an uncle who smoked a pipe. I never met him, but I'm told he smoked Prince Albert. In fact, my dad actually has some old Prince Albert tins in his basement that he uses for random screws and bolts and whatnot.

 

[vosBghos]

Sorry I have probably burbled on. I must write to Denis……

Don't be sorry great story, you have got a knack for writing...