Everything I know about pipe smoking comes from this forum. There are many whom I can thank and look up to in the pipe world.
Who Is/Was Your Pipe Mentor?
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I can honestly say this forum and diving in to slow smoke competitions. Trial by fire, and lots and lots of reading before I joined the forum. I feel like I already knew quite a few of you before I actually posted.
Okay, just realized how facetious that post looked. I started smoking a pipe before the internet and forums. Personally knew no pipe smokers and how my pipes were smoking let me know if I was doing it wrong or right. If the smoke was too hot, smoking too fast. If I was getting tongue bite, tobacco needed to be drier.
First my grandfather- he always smoked a billiard drugstore pipe all day long. His only tobacco was Prince Albert- to this day, one I have never tried. His typical day was spend sitting in a chair around the 1950s Formica kitchen table smoking the pipe and pouring his coffee into a saucer to cool it....
...and when I started making pipes and smoking more high end tobaccos 5 years ago, there was Harris- he'd stick one of my new pipes in his mouth to check the stem and make the most gawd-awful face when the button wasn't just right....and he always has the best tobacco....
...and when I started making pipes and smoking more high end tobaccos 5 years ago, there was Harris- he'd stick one of my new pipes in his mouth to check the stem and make the most gawd-awful face when the button wasn't just right....and he always has the best tobacco....
My great uncle Bill smoked a pipe and occasionally rolled a cigarette. I was about 10 years old and liked the smell. It was probably a drug store burley of some sort. I grew up without a father and Uncle Bill lived two houses down from me. He tolerated me and loved to tell me all kinds of stories, some of which might actually have been true. He was an old bachelor and his house always smelled like a mixture of pipe smoke and bacon. He had an old white bird dog and every evening he made a little pan of gravy out of bacon grease and poured it over the dry chow. When I was in high school I smoked cigarettes like all the other James Dean wannabes, but just before I graduated I bought a pair of pipes in the local drug store and a pouch of Half and Half and tried to smoke a pipe. By then Uncle Bill was gone but I remembered what he did and sort of taught myself. I smoked those pipes through college and took them into the Army where I was stationed in Korea. I left one sitting at a firing range and when I hurried back to get it, it was gone. I still have the other one.
Sadly, I do not have a pipe smoking mentor. None of my immediate family ever smoked a pipe. I don’t recall any extended family, nor any close friends smoking a pipe. The only pipe smoker I can think of in my life was the pastor of the church I grew up in. I guess I developed an interest in pipes back in college, but I couldn’t say why. I can only speculate that my time spent on the water with wind, waves, and sails, had an image of pipe smoking associated with it and that influenced my decision. But weirdly, in all my years of yacht racing, I don’t recall anyone associated ever smoking a pipe. I guess maybe I dare to be different.
My dad was a two pipe, one tobacco man with Sir Walter Raleigh as the one tobacco. Later, he switched to Half & Half. I really don't know why, he just did.
I went to the local Tinder Box and learned there of the different types and blends. It was there that I found my greatest love Latakia.
Through the years, many years, I learned from pipe magazines, by mail. Then the internet came along and boy howdy, have things got easy to discover. Now with U tube and pipedia there is so much information out there you would be hard pressed to not have an answer to any question. Then there is the site pipes and tobacco for opinions of any brand that's on the market.
So, in answer to the original question, I really did not have a pipe mentor, I just learned on my own.
I went to the local Tinder Box and learned there of the different types and blends. It was there that I found my greatest love Latakia.
Through the years, many years, I learned from pipe magazines, by mail. Then the internet came along and boy howdy, have things got easy to discover. Now with U tube and pipedia there is so much information out there you would be hard pressed to not have an answer to any question. Then there is the site pipes and tobacco for opinions of any brand that's on the market.
So, in answer to the original question, I really did not have a pipe mentor, I just learned on my own.
I'm not sure I could say I had one either. I learned on my own & by reading (Carl Ehwa's book & others back in the 70's. The closest thing to a mentor you could say I had was the guy who managed the Tinder Box that I worked in back around '74-'76, Jim McCloud, but that was more of a general product knowledge than an actual mentorship.
Bill
Bill
Zack, all those faces I made got you to make a much better stem. The early ones really were for shit. :nana:
I learned most of what I know from the internet. First it was the old alt.pipes newsgroup. Then it was a Yahoo pipe room where hoosierpipeguy and pipestud and others hung out at. Then it was smokersforum.uk and then this site. It has been a pretty cool journey so far.
I learned most of what I know from the internet. First it was the old alt.pipes newsgroup. Then it was a Yahoo pipe room where hoosierpipeguy and pipestud and others hung out at. Then it was smokersforum.uk and then this site. It has been a pretty cool journey so far.
Like Harris mostly from Internet forums. This forum and smokersforum.uk. Fred Bass was very helpful in educating me regarding meerschaums.
My friend Gordon (RIP)
http://pipesmagazine.com/forums/topic/how-or-why-did-you-start-smoking-a-pipe
http://pipesmagazine.com/forums/topic/how-or-why-did-you-start-smoking-a-pipe
My oldest brother. Years ago he smoke Balkan Sobraine and I would love to razz him about the smell, but I always loved it.
He told me “you’ll be a pipe smoker” and I would tell him he was crazy.
One day I walked into a B&M and bought a pipe and some Capt Black. When I told him he gifted me a nice pipe and all kinds of tobacco to try. It’s a great hobby we share.
He told me “you’ll be a pipe smoker” and I would tell him he was crazy.
One day I walked into a B&M and bought a pipe and some Capt Black. When I told him he gifted me a nice pipe and all kinds of tobacco to try. It’s a great hobby we share.
No one I knew smoked a pipe when I was growing up.
Something I have noticed however, now that I am a parent I am revisiting many children's books that I read as a child and feeling very fond nostalgic connections with all the many people (and animals) who are pipe smokers. In later childhood years reading chapter books I came across many more pipe smokers, especially delving into the classics.
I wouldn't say literature is my pipe mentor, but a lifelong fondness of reading certainly encouraged and complimented the hobby!
Isaac
Something I have noticed however, now that I am a parent I am revisiting many children's books that I read as a child and feeling very fond nostalgic connections with all the many people (and animals) who are pipe smokers. In later childhood years reading chapter books I came across many more pipe smokers, especially delving into the classics.
I wouldn't say literature is my pipe mentor, but a lifelong fondness of reading certainly encouraged and complimented the hobby!
Isaac
Way back in 2014 my fiancee at that time, a wonderful Southern belle born in Georgia and raised in Florida bought a Macqueen Barrel pipe and shared her interest with me, even though not a tobacco smoker she relished pipe tobacco. This piqued my interest and 5 years later she is no longer my fiancee but I have a few thousand dollars worth of pipe and tobacco and great friends in the community !!
Cheers,
Chris :puffpipe:
Cheers,
Chris :puffpipe:
No mentor, I knew that pipe smoking was something I would enjoy and learned what there's to know in time.
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