'm my self visually impaired - in medical terms blind - but I can see a little bit.
I just read through your whole post and all the responses. I've had all this on my mind a lot lately. By definition, I'm moderately visually impaired at this point--the best I could do looking through the refractor at the ophthalmologist earlier this week was about 20/60 to 20/80, and then some of that was really just guessing at the letters. I mean, I had a 1 in 26 chance of guessing right although I guess the probability goes down when you consider D looks like O or C or even G, and then the same thing with F, E, P, and B. They all look about the same. Add together about 17 diopters of nearsightedness + cataracts + excessive vitreous floaters and it's the perfect storm. It's both better and worse than it sounds since the real-world scenario is different depending on light conditions, and the left eye is not quite as bad as the right. Lucky for me, about an inch or two from my nose is still clear enough to read without glasses, and with them on, things within several feet are clear enough for me to function. It's like my brain is somehow filling in the gaps. Further away gets steadily blurrier, but I'm still able to drive--very carefully (I'm the guy driving 45 MPH you're behind cussing at and wanting to pass). I live in the so-called middle of nowhere, so I might meet one or two vehicles going to town, and I generally stick to the roads I've been driving on for the past thirty years. It's not like I'm trying to drive through downtown Atlanta at night. I can do what I need to do to make a living, keep the house up, work in the yard, read, use a computer, etc. and of course, smoke a pipe.
The doctor seemed to think cataract surgery is a good possibility if things get too bad, but then that carries its own set of risks since the longer the axial length, as with extreme nearsightedness, the greater the chance of retinal detachment, which would/could be a whole lot worse than where I am now. The surgery would solve some problems, though, if it went well, since they can pick an intraocular lens power to put in that gets you much closer to needing much less visual correction. But I'm not sitting around feeling sorry for myself in the mean time. I focus on the 80-85% I can see rather than the 15-20% I can't although I have to admit I get mildly pissed off over the fact that no matter how hard I look at something sometimes, I'm simply not capable of perceiving what I'm looking at. But it is what it is, as they say, and my task is to figure it out.
On to pipe smoking: I find that prepping the tobacco and packing the pipe are more tactile, so that is not a problem. Like you said, you know when it goes out, too, even if you can't see it. Lighting it hasn't been a problem. A Bic works just fine. And I can see the smoke. But I was worried about burning embers unbeknownst to me falling out during early tamping and setting the chair or rug on fire or something, so I came up with a solution. I use a pewter tray like the one pictured for my pipe tray. So after the first light, the tobacco rises up, and sometimes the same thing happens after the second. With the pipe in my mouth, the tamper in my right hand, and holding the tray in my left, when I tamp and relight, anything falling out goes in the tray. Then, too, I can sit the pipe in the tray in such a way that it is upright and not worry about it falling on the carpet or rug. I can sit the tamper and lighter in the same tray, and then the ash sticking to the tamper doesn't get everywhere. I'm probably worrying too much about it, but I really don't want to burn the house down.
