The Wonder Years...

[OSOBUCO]

Title edited for capitalization. -jpm


Hi All. - I am new to the forum and I was looking at all the beautiful pipes and pipe collections you all have and it made me wonder why I find them so artful. I never had a pipe smoker in my family as a kid growing up but one thing I distinctly remember is going to the tobacco shop with my mom (a cigarette smoker and they killed her - another story altogether). anyway, I always loved going to the shop primarily because of the smell. It was amazing and I suppose that is one reason I am getting into the hobby today. I would wander the store and soak up the smells and look at the pipes behind glass cases and jars full of tobacco. The woodwork in the shop was like dark mahogany all paneled walls and cases to match. The presentation, the smell, the pipes themselves all enthralled me and planted a seed way back in the 70s and here I am today buying up new flavors and pipes and trying like hell to avoid tongue bite. All in all it is an art. Pipe smoking. The smell, the look and feel of the tobacco, the beautiful lines of a fine pipe and the wisps of smoke with each sip. I am reliving my wonder years a bit with this hobby. - thanks for reading and sharing your experiences here - peace.

 

[STP]

Similar experience as a kid in the local Tinder Box

 

[WVOldFart]

I remember, as a child, going into the tobacco shop with my Dad, who smoked cigarettes for a while. Like you, the smells were so extraordinary. The display of pipes, pipe tobacco and cigars were unusual for a child to fully grasp. It was those images and remembered aromas that helped me purchase my first pipe and tobacco in 1980.

 

[FurCoat]

I always loved spending time in tobacco shops as a kid. I always knew I would be a pipe smoker.

 

[Laurent]

Never been to a pipe shop until now but when I lived with my grandparents after my parents divorce, my grandma took me next door to see her brother. He sat there and smoked a pipe when they had coffee. I was always interested in his pipe. That smell later in life is a memory that got me to get a pipe.

 

[kcghost]

I never thought about it much. I grew up with a father who smoked until he was 40 and then he quit cold turkey. I smoked my first cigar (it had a wooden tip) when I was 17. When I was 25 I started in on pipes. This was the early 70's. Gad, what a device!! It took me forever to figure out the damn thing. It's 50 years later and it still takes me three lights to get the things lit.

 

[OzPiper]

Both my parents were cigarette smokers. I HATE the smell of cigarette smoke. Stale cigarette smells make me puke ?

I fell in love with cigars one day at a friend's house. He had a box of Habanos on his sideboard. The sight of those cigars all lined up in their cedar coffret - so fresh in my memory still, and the aroma of those cigars and Spanish cedar. So evocative. I smoked cigars exclusively for some 15 years.

After dinner some years ago, I was smoking a cigar in a hotel bar/lounge (back in the days when you were allowed to smoke indoors). A gentleman was smoking his pipe at the other end of the room. The aroma from his pipe got me interested in pipes again. And here I am, on these Forums now.