What Brought You To The Pipe?

[slownumbers39]

A few years ago, a bit before Christmas, the wife was in the US on business and was at an airport getting ready to come home. Completely on a whim she bought a Savinelli pipe and 100 grams of some Peterson's tobacco for me for a Christmas present. Considering I was a non-smoker at the time, that was quite an assumption and risk for her.
I now have about 30 pipes and a nice little supply of tobacco. I find that I enjoy smoking a pipe, even if I cannot do so inside the house.

 

[didimauw]

Interesting question...I have no idea what got me into pipes...strange. It just sorta happened,? I must have came across a website talking about it or something.

 

[cosmicfolklore]

Thank gosh no one threw out that reading those hobbit books made them want to smoke a pipe. We seem to have finally got rid of all of them sorts, ha ha.
And, you never hear someone say that they came to smoking a pipe, because they were curious to what the Indians were all about.

 

[markus]

I grew up with this memory in my head of my Grandfather smoking a pipe. He was a retired welder and steamfitter who repaired a lot of farm equipment for farmers in the area and I would sometimes help him in his shop, holding this, or handing him that, or just hanging around and asking a lot of, what were probably irritating questions at the time. We enjoyed one another's company though. When he was working in the shop, he would smoke Middleton's Cherry Blend mixed with Prince Albert in cobs. Then he would go into the house and he would smoke the same mixture in his briar pipes, of which he had 4 (I have inherited them now). I never forgot the exquisite aroma of his pipe and the distinguished image of him, while he was smoking it. He was a great role model and as I got older I decided that I wanted to be like him, so I of course adopted the hobby of pipe smoking and found that I loved it. I have smoked a pipe off and on, ever since I made that decision, 10 years ago. I have only started smoking seriously in the last 3 years though.

 

[oldseadog]

When I was in the Navy and got my crow. Back in the day when it was smoke'em if you got em. I was a hm3 with the Marines a weapons platoon. And there sometimes a lot of hurry up and wait. I didn't like cigarettes. I bought a pipe a Missouri Meerschaum pouch of Borkum riff cherry cavendish and during the hurry up and wait. I would kick back relax and smoke my pipe. To this day i do enjoy Borkum riff cherry. But I mainly like CBR. But yes Uncle Sam got me in to it a long ago back in 1991. over the years I bought briars, meerschaum, but my favorite pipes are MM by far.

 

[chalbach72]

I really do love all of these stories, gents. Keep them coming; I love seeing how all walks of life meet together for the pursuit of enjoyment in pipes!

 

[texmexpipe]

About two years ago I was reading through Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series and was in a very stressful position at work. The characters in the novels often smoked a pipe. One night I googled pipe smoking and after reading here on the forums, watching a few YouTube videos I ordered my first briar and some vanilla cavendish from P&C. Smoked the whole pouch fairly quick, and then proceeded to buy a new blend or two every month or so.

 

[texmexpipe]

About two years ago I was reading through Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series and was in a very stressful position at work. The characters in the novels often smoked a pipe. One night I googled pipe smoking and after reading here on the forums, watching a few YouTube videos I ordered my first briar and some vanilla cavendish from P&C. Smoked the whole pouch fairly quick, and then proceeded to buy a new blend or two every month or so.

 

[jmatt]

I had a $500 a month cigar habit and decided pipe tobacco was MUCH cheaper. Then cellaring and artisan pipes happened.....

 

[thesinistral]

I was stuck in Japan for a whole month and was very stressed. My wife told me to buy a pack of cigarettes. It got me through that trip. After returning home we passed a tobacco store in the mall (remember those?). I left with a Nording freehand and a couple aromatics. The best part is that a few months later Erik Nording himself was sitting in the pipe shop with a wood engraving pen "signing". I raced home, got my Nording and returned to get his signature. Obviously, I treasure that pipe.

 

[wolfe64]

Surfing the internet and come upon this website. For some reason it immediately reminded me of walking into my Grandparents' house with Grandpa sitting in his Lazyboy smoking a pipe and the aroma was so good.
Mark

 

[katarn07]

Nearly two years ago I told my wife I wanted to celebrate the birth of our first child with a cigar. So she wrangled up my friends secretly and they surprised me with cigars. We stood outside for a good hour and a half smoking. I loved the experience. I wanted to get into the hobby. But my wife and father in law told me to get a pipe. They smelled better they said. So I got a pipe. They look more sophisticated than a cigar. That's for sure. I plan on smoking cigars with my friend again in October when our second child is expected to arrive. But in the meantime I'll smoke my pipe once a week or every other week.

 

[pappymac]

One of my grandfather's was a pipe smoker and I remember liking the smell of his pipe. I bought my first pipe during the summer of 1972 while stationed aboard a U.S. Coast Guard icebreaker home ported in Seattle. While we were underway off the coast of Alaska,some of the guys would sit on the fantail (the back of the boat) and smoke their pipes in the evenings so I went down to the little store we had aboard and bought a pipe and a pouch of Borkum Riff Whiskey and learned how to smoke my pipe from an old chief boatswainmate.

 

[newbroom]

I've started and quit smoking many times. I smoked cigarettes. The last time I re-started was because I was in such a physically stressful situation that I felt frequent agony. I was in dire straights and my life felt very humorless.

Prior to quitting,I had been rolling my own cigs for a long time and stil had the makings.

One reason I always would finally be moved to quit was that I'd experience some right lung sensitivity that seemed to NOT happen if I had a particular cigarette paper, the ones that came with Drum tobacco.

I'd always have more tobacco than the papers required and searched for them to no avail.

I was down to using TOP papers when I decided that I'd go get a corn cob and bypass the wrap. I kept smoking the same ryo style tobacco for a couple of weeks maybe, then...voila! I discovered pipe tobacco, this website, and of course pipes of many substances, Countries of origin, and style. Yeah!

 

[pitchfork]

I had smoked cigars off and on since college, but quit when they became super expensive. Plus, with kids and graduate school, I just didn't have the time for cigars anyway. I'd smoke the occasional cigarette (one or two packs per year!), but then a good friend loaned me a pipe and introduced me to Dunhill Night Cap. Having only smoked aromatics on occasion before that, I was amazed the next morning when my mouth didn't taste like an ashtray. I said to myself, "I could get used to this." The rest is history.

 

[tslex]

My dad and lots of my uncles smoked pipes. In particular, one Uncle Bob -- I had three Uncle Bobs and my Dad was Bob and I'm Robert (not a very creative family) -- who was the most avid pipe smoker. Bob went blind when he was 10 (scarlet fever I think) but it never deterred him. He would travel all over the city by bus and train, accompanied by a big GSD guide dog (he outlived three of them), trailing a fragrant cloud of smoke. He worked in a couple of industries (he was an industrial engineer if you can imagine) and late in life got a master's degree in urban planning (yes a blind guy) where he did pioneering work on accessibility and access for the disabled. (You could drive him through Cleveland and, if you told him where you started, he could call the turns and name the buildings. He had the entire city in his head.)
Bob had all his pipes and materials carefully arranged around "his chair" at the house and always knew where everything was. More than any of my other uncles he saw the pipe as a pastime to be shared and encouraged my interest. One odd thing, though: Although he had a good selection of pipes -- including a huge thing, a table pipe made from the branch of a birch tree -- I only ever saw him smoke ONE tobacco -- Half and Half.

 

[hawky454]

I've always loved the smell of a pipe and I always loved the smell of a Tinder Box shop. I remember visiting those shops in the mall when I was a kid and I wanted to stay there all day, that was my 'candy store'.

No one in my family smoked a pipe but I remember my father always talked about how much he loved the smell of a pipe. One day he went out and bought Captain Black, not to smoke, but instead he put the tobacco in a potpourri pot and it actually smelled up the whole house with that warm smell of a pipe.

later on in life, I got into the quick fix style tobaccos (cigs, dip) and was addicted to that shit for many, many years. Much later, around 2008, I was on my route (worked as a mail carrier in the post office) and I always delivered mail to a retire home. There, an older gentlemen was always waiting for me with his pipe and I just fell in love with the aroma all over again. Turns out my father in-law used to smoke pipes and had quit due to health reasons but kept several of his pipes. I shared my thoughts about smoking a pipe with him and he hooked me up with 6 pipes and I still have all of those today. '

I started off with two aromatics and an English. I really believe if I only started with those aromatics that I would have given up almost immediately but I decided to give that English blend a try and I absolutely fell in love with it! Been smoking since.

 

[cigrmaster]

One of my cigar buddies began working me to get into pipes. He said it was awesome. So one day I gave in and was sitting in my buddies cigar lounge, and he had some pipes and tobacco he was selling. I bought a Savinelli Linea Piu 5 Apple(still have it) and began my journey. I have no idea what tobacco I started with. I had no idea how to pack a pipe, no idea how to smoke a pipe. It was an uncomfortable process as I tried all kinds of things to keep from burning my tongue off. I wish this site exsisted back then, would have saved me a ton of pain and money.
Back around 1999 we created a Yahoo site so we could talk about pipes and tobacco. Pipstud was among the guys who began with us. I got a lot of good advice there. We had fun and had a lot of laughs. Not sure when we stopped posting there or even why. Came to this site in 2012 and learned a ton of good stuff. even today I learn new stuff and am very grateful this site exists.

 

[ltstone]

I started so I could be cool like Cosmic and Cigrmaster and get lots of chicks. Its not working out too well for me though ...

 

[cigrmaster]

ltstone, are you wearing black knee high socks with short shorts and sandles. Chicks dig that look, give it a try.