What Started the Obsession?

[johnsteam86]

What started your obsession with pipe smoking and pipes in general? Was it a memory from the past? Family members getting together with the elders sitting in their chairs smoking their favorite pipes and talking about nothing really. Maybe a walk in the park and some gentleman sitting on the bench smoking his favorite blend with the smell wafting passed your nostrils, enticing your imagination of days past.
Mine happen to come from a book, well a whole series of books from Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Yep you guessed it Sherlock Holmes. When I first read the book my mind filled itself with images of Victorian elegance and pipe dreams. The very thought about how he lived compared to most at the time made me find a tobacconist a couple days later and next thing you know I'm home with a Savinelli unfinished full bent pipe with a vulcanite stem. At that time there also was a morning television program of Sherlock Holmes with the late Jeremy Brett. Needless to say there was a lot of Borkim Riff smoked during those hours. I would hold the pipe like him, though rather new to it had to relight it often since I was basically learning by a television program and didn't know the proper way to pack a pipe at the time.
Now years later my collection is ever more growing and the obsession is going even into opening my own pipe crafting shop online to sell pipes that I plan on making and maybe a couple accessories. Finding myself engulfed in the many forums we have on here further makes the obsession more real since we are all basically the same, some obsessed with the pipes themselves and others the various tobacco blends that come out every year. Either way it all leads to some splendid pipe dreams doesn't it? What was your story for starting in pipes compared to other things? Have you found many people with a similar story? Share it hear for all of your friends to hear.

 

[prairiedruid]

A couple of years ago, before Father's Day, I recalled my father smoking a pipe when I was very young. He later switched to cigs (3 packs a day) but I still remembered him sitting in his chair with his morning coffee, reading a book and smoking a bent pipe full of Half and Half. He was a one pipe and one blend man as far as I can remember. I started using my google kung fu to learn more about pipe smoking and came across this forum. Yep the forum helped create a pipe smoker. After reading and learning a lot from the posts here I ordered my first pipe and several blends and it has been a sweet ride ever since.

 

[cwarmouth]

When I was a little kid I had an uncle (Uncle Shorty) who was a short, bald, jolly guy who was always happy, had a plump wife, a great sense of humor, and a pipe in his mouth, always. His little house in Northern Michigan smelled wonderfully of pipe smoke so I aways associated that smell with a good sentiment of that guy.
Fast forward 35 years: Some friends invited my wife and I over for dinner between Christmas and New Years. After a nice meal, a couple hours of playing Carcassonne, and good conversation, my friend showed me a churchwarden that his wife got him for Christmas and asked if I wanted to go outside and light up. Yes! He packed a bent billiard for me and we went outside into the freezing cold and shivered through a bowl of something or other. I had to relight at least 6 times but I was instantly hooked. He sent that pipe home with me. A few days later I stopped at a Wallgreen's and bought a white pouch of Captain Black. Now, I know how I am about hobbies. I am obsessive about everything I do. When I started playing guitar, playing was not enough. I had to start building them. When I started bow hunting, hunting was not enough. I had to give up the compound bow and start hunting traditional. Then I had to make my own wooden bows and wooden arrows. I've been fly fishing all my life, but fishing isn't enough. I have to tie flies, build my own boats, build my own rods. I'm crazy. But I SWORE that I would NOT be that way about pipe smoking. One pipe was plenty. I would smoke it 3 or 4 times per year. I wasn't going to get into all these other tobaccos. I would stay content with Captain Black forever.
Yeah. Right.

 

[ukbob]

On holiday with the wife in Austria 1986 walking past a pipe shop ,just suddenly stopped and looked at them turned to the wife and said i want to get a pipe.popped in side and came out with a Ben Wade if my memory serves me correctly.

Have given up a couple of times over the years ,can't see me doing that now though I find it's one of few things that help relax nowadays .

 

[warren]

Coeds! And, the pipe was yet another method of nicotine delivery. No obsession though.

 

[sablebrush52]

Coeds!

You mean the women where you went to college all smoked pipes? 8O
I will say that once upon a time, smoking a pipe could help get you laid.
For me it was the scent of pipe smoke that initially caught my interest.

 

[thesmokindragon]

I had smoked cigars for over 20 years, figured I would take my love for tobacco to the next level....and so TheSmokinDragon was born. I'm sure glad I did, the complexity of pipe tobacco and the brotherhood of the briar is and will always be unmatched ::

 

[woodsroad]

I got tired of people bumming cigs off me in prison.

 

[swb118]

Since pointing at someone with your finger to make point is considered rude, I decided that I needed a way to emphasis points to the younger men I lead. I wanted something subtle. No raising of my voice, No profanity. Just something these young men would eventually clue into, that told them " oh crap better get on this" or "whoops I need to tighten up" or "hey I really did do a good job".
A pipe, imho, serves just dandy for this. My guys know that when I'm listening to their version of whatever shenanigans have occurred, quietly smoking my pipe, taking it all in, then stop, make eye contact, and remove said pipe, and turn them stem 180 degrees at them, its perhaps time to listen.
Not tough guy blunder and crap. Just something I recall from older gents who mentored me from a young age. Trust me, I was on the other end of the pipe more than once!
That and it relaxes me to no end.

 

[warren]

Coeds! Pipes! Laying pipe! The story is all there.

 

[virginialover]

I bought my first pipe on my 18th birthday as I instinctively knew that it was a good thing for me. The tobacco journey brought me from aromatics to Virginias and then to Latakia mixtures and Burleys/Kentucky. Virginias and Va/Pers remain my favorites but during the Canadian winter, I go more for Latakia and Burley/Kentucky.
While you could be alone, you're never lonely with a pipe and the relaxation it brings helps with life's rough edges.

 

[workman]

The pipe appeals to my basic sense of aesthetics. The classic pipes are beautiful in a basic way, like guns, knives, hammers, frying pans etc. Tools, shaped by craftsmen, designed through centuries. I've always felt this. One of my grandfathers was a pipesmoker. And of course captain Haddock from the Tintin comics, I read. What gave me the final push was my desire to quit cigarettes but not tobacco.

 

[cigrmaster]

I grew up in a smoking family. One grandfather smoked pipes, one cigars. Both parents smoked cigarettes, my dad also smoked cigars and dabbled in pipes. But what really got me into pipes was a good cigar buddy told me he took up the pipe and that I had to try one. He worked on me for a couple of weeks before I finally took the plunge.
I was sitting in my buddies cigar lounge one day and I asked him to show me the pipes he had. I settled on a Savinelli Linea Pui 5 Apple. I don't remember what tobacco I started with but I know it was an Ashton of some type as he didn't carry many other blends, as he was mostly a cigar place. I had no idea what I was doing so my buddy(who owned the place) showed me how to load a pipe and how to smoke it. My cigar buddy who worked me was glad I jumped in so he had someone to talk pipes and tobacco with. We ended up getting another few of our cigar buddies hooked on the pipes and the rest is history.

 

[Chasing Embers]

Back in '91, most of my friends were smoking cigarettes, and I had to be the different one.

 

[woodsroad]

"Trust me, I was on the other end of the pipe more than once!"
Ah, to be young, careless and uninhibited once again.

 

[james72]

Huckleberry Finn was my inspiration.

 

[piffyr]

I just needed some help to get off cigs. So, I picked up a pipe and never looked back... Okay, "never" is a strong word. I looked back once or twice but they were brief and unsatisfying flirtations.

 

[hawky454]

I just always new that I was going to smoke a pipe. I have very early memories of acting like a kid in a candy store but instead of the store being a candy shop I would act that way in a Tinder Box. I loved the smell and I love the look of a pipe. No one in my family smoked a pipe so it wasn't any one person that influenced my decision. I of course got side tracked and started smoking cigarettes and I started dipping. I knew I didn't want to give up tobacco entirely so I decided to switch over to the pipe. I got obsessed after my first "perfect smoke" and the rest is history.

 

[kangaroo]

"2 packs of cigarette per day seems costly and unhealthy, i must find a cheaper way to absorb nicotine hmm". Welp, at least i was right that piping feels much healthier.

 

[kola]

In school we were assigned to read The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. I loved the book. A few days later I "borrowed" a corncob from a drugstore along with some unknown pipe tobacco and fired it up.
Not long after that I ran away from home for 3 days. The entire town was looking for me.
A good book can be powerful in so many ways.