What was your 1st Pipe Smoking Experience?

[anglesey]

I was 8 or 9 years old (or even younger perhaps) in my uncle's garden, on a Sunday. My aunt always made Sunday dinner, and she would badger my uncle for various things, so he'd leave his pipe, which he smoked on a bench in his garden, on the arm of the bench. I went into the garden and picked up his pipe and smoked it before it went out. He smoked condor ready rubbed in a straight falcon with a dental bit.
I have that same pipe now since he's given up in his auld age (god alone knows why). I never smoke it, as I loathe falcons with a passion, but it's always a nice reminder.

 

[daimyo]

Here in Fairbanks we used to have the University Mall. It was there when I was a child until about 10 years ago or so. The one store that was there since I was a child until they closed the doors was the pipe shop. A dimly lit, cluttered and wonderful smelling shop. It had an old wooden cigar Indian out front and was the kind of store you don't see much of anymore. The grizzled and bearded old sourdough who was the owner and only employee could mix some tobacco. He was however, the worst customer service provider and pipe tobacco representative EVER. It was a chore to even get him to speak and once he did, would offer no advice or guidance. Were you to ask the difference between Lane 1Q and Dunhill´s Royal Yacht, he would have grumbled and said something to the effect of "buy em". Despite his cheery disposition, I loved the store. When I was of age to finally be able to purchase something, I was excited to (actually, I think it might have been when I made my fake ID a few years before I was actually legal). I purchased a cheap church warden in the $15-20 range of unknown make and a 2oz pouch of something aro that resembled Hobbit's Weed. My friends and I went somewhere outside and scenic, an easy thing to do in Alaska. That first attempt to smoke it was less than desirable. Wet and sloppy; I don't think the pipe helped but my technique was certainly not. This included extra tongue burn for good measure and I likely overly lit it using a Bic. Despite all this there was something about it that appealed to me. A few months later, having done some research I bought a Peterson p-lip bent apple and had a much more enjoyable experience. When they finally decided to demolish the mall, it was the last store open in it. I don't miss the mall but I miss the pipe store.

 

[dryseason91]

It just occurred to me one day that I wanted to try smoking a pipe. My local B&M had a package of a house pipe, a tin of house tobacco, pipe cleaners, and a Czech tool all for 50 quid, so when I came into said monetary denomination away I went, and the rest is history.

 

[edgreen]

In the mid 70's, when I was in college, I went into a Tinder Box to buy papers (mid-70's/college!) and the place smelled so wonderful and they had jars of stuff they were selling by the ounce (again something I could relate to)

so decided to buy a pipe and some baccy. Looking back the pipe was probably a Tinder Box Varese (I would have jumped on that because of the composer). One of the blends was a Latakia, which I still associate with winter and another probably had cavendish in the name. (That too would have impressed me). I switched to cigars after about a year of the pipe. Still don't know why it took so long to come back.

 

[ruger414]

Mine was baaaaaaaad. I had just turned 18 and wanted to try a smoking (for no better reason than that I was finally old enough to buy tobacco) so I got a pouch of Captain Black and a Chinese cob at the cigarette store. I kept a dignified face and put on a haughty show as I took puff after puff of one of the least enjoyable things I have ever tried! Recently I got seriously involved in the hobby and have a few good pipes and a small but quickly growing cellar.

 

[mso489]

As a real young grammar school kid, six or seven, we'd put filched cartons of cigarettes in a Radio Flyer wagon and

go down to the construction site on our block and watch the workers and smoke until I was pale green. In college,

I smoked a few Hav'a'Tampas a week, since the student union had ash trays everywhere (last two years of school at

journalism school, U.Mo. Columbia). Not until I was married did I buy a pipe. That was really the only tobacco experience

that was more than a lark. Still, I quit to support my late wife who quit a serious cigarette habit, but took up moderate

pipe smoking after she was gone. My dad was a pipe smoker, as was his dad. Dad smoked most waking hours until he

quit cold turkey at about 65.

 

[rangerearthpig]

I still remember it as if it were yesterday...
I was on a secluded stretch of beach on the island of Maui. Raquel Welch was rubbing tanning butter on my shoulders, and Sofia Lauren was babbling on and on in her silly accent about how she liked my goatee. As we were sipping glasses of a nice reserve whiskey, the entire Swedish Bikini Team strolled up to us. After some quick introductions, they gifted me with a beutiful Scandinavian custom straight billiard. The grain on this beautiful pipe was almost as fiery as their eyes. The captain of the Bikini Team, seems like her name was Olga, reached inside her very full bikini top and produced a velvet bag of Molto Dolce. Unbelievable! We sat there on my beach towel, enjoying bowl after bowl, laughing......
Oh wait.......I think that was Bob's World.
Nevermind....

 

[edgreen]

:lol:

 

[ravkesef]

I was 18 years old, about to start college, and in those days pipe smoking was the cool thing for college guys to do. The pipe was a nondescript bent bulldog with a stinger in it – what did I know? The tobacco was Edgeworth Executive. I packed the pipe way too tight, because I believed that that was how it was done. I lit it, took a couple of puffs, and realized I had found a lifelong love. Over time, I experimented with different packing methods, and a few different tobaccos – even Mixture 79!. I knew that in time I would find just the right pipe and the right tobacco, but in the meantime I was in love with my new found hobby. That was 54 years ago.

 

[theboz]

Mine was Christmas 2012, My dad gave me his pipe from when he tried picking up the pipe. We went to the tobacco shop in the mall and I bought a tin of Squadron Leader, a pipe tool, and a pack of cleaners. I smoked a few bowls in a row, all of them gurgled and I was probably puffing away too fast. When my scorched tongue healed, I slowed things down a bit and started the real experience.

 

[ragnar]

Last fall on a whim I bought a MM straight cob with a tin of Early Morning Pipe. It's been a life altering experience, I find time every day to just stop and enjoy not just the amazing tobacco's available for pipes, but the world around me. Sometimes just having an excuse to slow down and "smell the roses" is the best reason to smoke a pipe for me.

 

[phred]

I got lucky - after a friend of mine picked up a pipe and some tobacco on a whim during a writing retreat we were on a couple of years ago. I found the "room note" of whatever it was he was smoking pleasant (out on a cabin's back porch in the Rocky Mountains), and it seemed to go well with writing. At the time, my mother-in-law had just gone into hospice with terminal lung cancer, so it felt a little weird considering taking up pipe smoking. I wound up doing a bunch of research on cigs vs. pipes, second hand smoke, and so forth, and stumbled across this site, which has been a wealth of information.
After about a month of dithering, I realized that there was a proper tobacconist's shop just up from the big box computer store that I frequent, so I stopped by one weekend and was ably assisted by a guy who was quite enthusiastic about pipe smoking. I picked out a Bjarne Viking Classic, was politely pointed toward the Lane's 1Q jar, and smoked about half a bowl there in the store as we talked about various stuff. They got me kitted out with a Czech tool, an inexpensive butane lighter, some pipe cleaners, and 2 oz. of "Victorian Standard" (1Q). All in all, a most civilized "first time".