Who Got You Into Pipe Smoking And When?

[Grangerous]

Is that because there is a lot of cinnamon in Lebanese cooking, Ahi Ka?

 

[Mark 0092]

I started at the age of 20 at school ... I saw an old man smoking a pipe on a bench with a sweet, creamy, good aroma ... I was tired of cigarettes because I coughed and a lot ... I smoked a lot and then I approached that old man asking him some advice ... I bought a pipe for 50 Swiss francs and a flavored, chemical tobacco that I no longer felt the language for days but I wanted to smoke a pipe ...... I have a hard head and from then I never stopped .... now I smoke Tuscans every now and then but always pipe ...

 

[olkofri]

Myself. ~40 months ago.

 

[frozenchurchwarden]

For me it holds historical value. Pipesmoking has been common practice across the last 400 years of English/European history and I feel like we're losing something of cultural significance if everyone stops and forgets it ever happened.
Can you really read Sherlock Holmes without smoking a pipe?
Can Mark Twain be understood without smoking a Cigar?
I argue "No", they cannot.
At least that's the pitch I'd throw at the Canadian government if they ever try to outlaw tobacco completely, upholding cultural tradition is portrayed as a great virtue and everyone else around me seems to get away with a lot of stuff in the name of historical preservation so I should easily be able to smoke an occasional Pipe as a legitimate part of my "cultural identity".

 

[Chasing Embers]

Started in '91 at 17 for no other reason than I enjoyed tobacco. To my knowledge, I'm the only pipe smoker my family has had in four generations.

 

[Chasing Embers]

Can you really read Sherlock Holmes without smoking a pipe?

Could never get into those.

Can Mark Twain be understood without smoking a Cigar?

From what I've read about him I wouldn't want to.?‍

frozenchurchwarden:

a legitimate part of my "cultural identity".

You're indigenous?

 

[olkofri]

Could never get into those.

I've read some, but never whilst smoking a pipe.

From what I've read about him I wouldn't want to.?‍

Ditto. "If smoking is not allowed in Heaven then I shall not go": what utter nonsense!

You're indigenous?

Nope, but ever since the Indians shared this Xikar thing with Spaniards, pipe smoking became a European thing, thus it's part of my heritage.

 

[Chasing Embers]

pipe smoking became a European thing, thus it's part of my heritage

By today's BS, that would make it cultural appropriation.

olkofri:

Ditto. "If smoking is not allowed in Heaven then I shall not go": what utter nonsense!

Also one of the earliest world wide cocaine distributors.

 

[Dutchland Pipe Smoker]

I remember when my great-uncles smoked pipes in the mid to late '80s. The smell was amazing. It wasn't until a few years ago that I started to go to more cigar social events. I am not a fan of cigars, so I decided to give pipes a try and it just went downhill from there.

 

[olkofri]

By today's BS, that would make it cultural appropriation.

But we're smart Black Frigateers, Cap'n. We don't follow newfangled BS.

 

[Chasing Embers]

But we're smart Black Frigateers, Cap'n. We don't follow newfangled BS.

I know. I got griped at not too long ago when I wore a raven feather in my hair. Was told I was mocking American tribals. My great grandparents on both sides were Shawnee.

 

[Derby]

I’m not trying to encourage anyone to start pipe smoking and I don’t want to contravene any rules of the site, but I am interested to hear your stories; spend a little time with me down Memory Lane if you can?
My Grandad got me into pipe smoking. I spent a school holiday at my Grandparent’s house, when I was 13 or so; upon arrival, on the kitchen table, was a Hamlet cigar, a Woodbine and a pipe loaded with Condor; times were different in the 1990’s.
I hadn’t smoked anything up to this this point - the legal age being 16 in the UK and I looked all of my 13 years - and grandad said “You’ll be old enough soon; time for you to decide.”
I used to sit on his knee as a kid, listening to stories about El Alamein and Rommel in the desert, blue smoke curling up to the sky from his pipe as he told me stories that I couldn’t repeat here; the stem end of his pipe was used as a pointing device, as well as a rifle, a flag pole and anything else he could use it for.
That day, I opted for the pipe; it felt refined as it hung from my lip, I was hooked.
My Grandad had learnt to cut hair during the war and he would take me off, round the village with him, as he went to Mr So And So’s house to cut hair, everyone of them smoked something - Player’s cigarettes, Woodbines, pipes, cheroots; some took snuff if a blizzard of brown powder, sneezing and guffawing all round the place.
I wasn’t so keen on the cigarette smokers, there houses smelt like an ash tray but the pipe smokers? The smell was like heaven. I can’t remember a bad smell but I suppose there must have been: cherry tobacco, vanilla, walnut - all alien to me but smelling beautiful. To this day, if I come across a brother of the briar out on the street, I move into his slip stream and try and work out the blend.
There was an old chap, called Mr Croft - pronounced Mester in that part of Yorkshire - who was a carpenter by trade. His workshop was a meeting place for the menfolk - much like I imagine old barbers shops were in the States. One memory is of him turning some wood and the smell of the wood shavings mingling with the pipe smoke, will stay with me until the end.
I remember: tea and tobacco - the kettle was boiled 3 or more times in the hour and everyone used a cup and saucer to drink from, as my grandad stood, cutting hair.
He was good at cutting hair, if you liked a short back and sides.
My gran was not complimentary about the smell in the slightest, we were banished to the kitchen while she watched Dad’s Army, snorting and giggling at it but to me, that kitchen, smoking a pipe, is where I learned more about life and the true horrors of man than ever I learned in a classroom.
I hope that this thread doesn’t contravene any site rules or regulations but I love a good story; I’d be pleased to hear yours.

What a great start to pipesmoking. You evoke vivid pictures of the past. Thanks.

 

[johnscs]

My grandpa was a pipe smoker, and he was certainly one of the "influencers" who turned me on to the briar. I was probably only eight or nine years old when I decided I would definitely become a pipe smoker. I loved and admired my grandpa, and I always associated him with the aroma of Sir Walter Raleigh and Amphora, which I could never get enough of. An especially fond memory: My grandpa and a handful of his friends would get together for coffee and socializing two or three days a week: He and one of his good friends always had their fragrant pipes with them. He didn't directly instruct me (not in the beginning, at least), but I learned a lot about technique from him and his pipe-smoking friends through careful observation. By my early teens, I was pretty sure that all that observation had prepared me to smoke a pipe as soon as the opportunity presented itself.

When my dad went through a pipe-smoking phase, encouraged by my grandpa (his dad), I just couldn't wait any longer to try smoking a pipe myself, even though I was only 15. I tried smoking a bowl of SWR in one of my dad's pipes in the garage while no one was home. Predictably, I had a hard time keeping the pipe lit, despite my years of careful observation. It took some practice applying my grandpa's technique, but I gradually got the hang of it. I learned to like it well enough to stick with it. I realized I shouldn't be borrowing my dad's pipe and making off with my grandpa's tobacco all the time. Until I turned 18 and went to college, I smoked Amphora and SWR in a Medico and a Dr. G in secret, sometimes with a high school friend of mine.

Soon after my 18th birthday, I went to the pipe shop to buy my first legit pipe, I picked out a classic smooth billiard with a saddle stem, with the help of the shop guy who had regularly sold tobacco and pipe supplies to my grandpa. He didn't seem to recognize me, even though I had spent hours in that place with my grandpa and my dad, hovering longingly over the pipes and tobacco jars. I remember the little lesson he gave me as I broke in my new pipe. It turned out that my observational skills had partly failed, so the shop guy offered a little guidance about packing and clean-up. When I showed off my new pipe to my grandpa, he winked and mentioned he had a hunch I was keen on pipes. He said he'd have given me a pipe to smoke a few years earlier, but he thought my grandma would take a dim view of the idea. Anyway, he passed on a couple of old-school Bing Crosby-style pipes, which I cleaned up and treasured. Around the same time, my official entry into the hobby got my dad back into pipes. Great memories!

 

[frozenchurchwarden]

Could never get into those.



From what I've read about him I wouldn't want to.?‍



You're indigenous?

What qualifies Pipe smoking as part of cultural identity is that for an extended period of time it was expected behavior, for a man to be alive in the 18th or 19th century and not smoking a pipe would be seen as abnormal.

Go back far enough and pillaging neighboring countries is also an important part of my Viking heritage.
Vikings generally set out to dominate the world, and looking at the way things have progressed over the last thousand years I'm not sure if we ever really stopped.

 

[olkofri]

What qualifies Pipe smoking as part of cultural identity is that for an extended period of time it was expected behavior, for a man to be alive in the 18th or 19th century and not smoking a pipe would be seen as abnormal.

Go back far enough and pillaging neighboring countries is also an important part of my Viking heritage.
Vikings generally set out to dominate the world, and looking at the way things have progressed over the last thousand years I'm not sure if we ever really stopped.

Yup. I remember reading that a woman wrote in the 19th century, "I can put up with any flaw in a man, except one: that he not be a smoker". Compare that to to-day's female varsity students who abuse you non-stop for your 'tobacco disease'.

Yeah, the Norse raiders: the Surtdrakkar ruled the seas way before the Black Frigate.

 

[warren]

What qualifies Pipe smoking as part of cultural identity is that for an extended period of time it was expected behavior, for a man to be alive in the 18th or 19th century and not smoking a pipe would be seen as abnormal.

I'd love to see some citations regarding the above statement. The cost of the leaf would, alone, seem to preclude the majority of the male population from taking to tobacco. Socially, in Europe, smoking in public was frowned upon. Hence, private clubs and, in a few "upscale" residences, a smoking room with cap and robe donned to keep the reek from the rest of the residence. Clay pipes were pretty much relegated to pubs. One could buy a pipe full of tobacco, smoke it and then toss the clay into the Thames. But, men did not go out on the street with a pipe.

Even aboriginal Americans smoked ritualistically and not routinely. Early use by aborigines would suggest that today, to take the debate into the realm of the absurd, that we pipe smokers are guilty of cultural appropriation. Ergo, to be PC, we are guilty and should be shunned by the PC police, perhaps condemned to purgatory.

Nope, I'm not buying the above quote without some historical citations.

The historical revision of the Norsemen from raiders to colonizers is unsupported by any historical reference I've read. A village here and there for provisioning the raiders but, conquering entire poeples didn't seem, to my knowledge, their modus oporandi. They quickly discovered no reason to raid North America as the aborigines were pretty much dirt poor. Too bad they didn't continue their explorations southward into the gold rich areas.

 

[frozenchurchwarden]

Yup. I remember reading that a woman wrote in the 19th century, "I can put up with any flaw in a man, except one: that he not be a smoker". Compare that to to-day's female varsity students who abuse you non-stop for your 'tobacco disease'.

Yeah, the Norse raiders: the Surtdrakkar ruled the seas way before the Black Frigate.

Don't forget, after conquering France the Normans then conquered England, and permanently settled in both places.
Maybe not quite as pure in blood, but The Black Frigate still carried Vikings.

 

[Chasing Embers]

Vikings generally set out to dominate the world, and looking at the way things have progressed over the last thousand years I'm not sure if we ever really stopped.

Ah, but not all of us have Nordic ancestry.

 

[olkofri]

Ah, but not all of us have Nordic ancestry.

But anyone with European ancestors is related to ur-ancestor Japhet.

 

[olkofri]

They quickly discovered no reason to raid North America as the aborigines were pretty much dirt poor.

By the time they reached North America the Norse didn't go a-viking anymore, as they had already converted to Christianity, most of them anyway (some of the Norse expeditionaries to America were still pagans); so, their interest wasn't raiding, but settlement, which couldn't be realised because of the 'natives' having turned hostile. Unable to muster the numbers required to settle AND fend off hostile locals, the Norse decided to go back to Greenland and just pay regular visits to North American lands for timber and trade with the less unfriendly Dorset proto-Eskimos of the now-Canadian Arctic archipelago. Plenty of evidence on that.