Smoking is something adults do, or so I thought as a kid, and men, real men, smoked pipes and cigars. My grandfather drove a road grader for the county, and was smoking a pipe every time I saw him. One uncle, a railroad man, often smoked a cigar. Another uncle was the chief of police, recently retired as county sheriff, also smoked cigars. My own father, when I finally met him, would smoke a pipe while he was rolling tomorrow’s cigarettes (same tobacco).
When I was old enough to experiment but not old enough to purchase it, I tried to smoke a cigarette I stole from my mom. I hacked up a lung and decided it wasn’t for me.
Some time later, I joined the Marine Corps and started hanging out with friends who smoked cigars and learned you don’t inhale. Novel idea. I started going to the local shop they hung at and tried several cigars. I enjoyed them well enough but memories of my grandfather kept drawing me to the pipes displayed at the same store.
When we got deployed to Iraq the shop owner sent us a care package it had enough cigars in it for the whole platoon, less one, but he had thrown in a pipe and 2oz ziplock of tobacco. It had my name on it, literally.
Some time later, after the Corps, I would go to a local pub that allowed smoking on the patio where several men would smoke cigars. I joined them when they were there but would smoke my pipe on occasion. I got so many positive comments from the ladies regarding the pipe that I eventually smoked it almost exclusively.
Today I enjoy a pipe as often as I can but cigars are buy a stick/smoke a stick, and only on rare occasion, usually for a celebration of some sort but my love is for the pipe. I’ve never had a cigarette since that first one.
