Why Didn't You Smoke Pipes Earlier?

[mso489]

I know some of you were smoking pipes in the cradle, but many of us started a little later in life. I didn't smoke a pipe until after I had graduated college, been in the Navy, and in grad school, and gotten married. I never smoked cigarettes regularly, and I enjoyed cigars just on occasion. But I avoided pipes. Why? I didn't want to seem to mimic my dad who was a regular pipe smoker. I didn't want to seem to aspire to be my professors who smoked pipes. But I finally started smoking a pipe after my late wife and i bought our first house. She smoked a lot of cigarettes, and I didn't want to do that, but I bought a pipe and tobacco at the local Tinder Box and got to enjoy it. It would have been fun to smoke in the Navy, maybe aboard ship when the smoking lamp was lighted. The guys who perpetually bummed cigarettes off others wouldn't have bothered me, and it would have been an individualistic thing to do when people were in uniform and had the same haircuts. Why didn't you start sooner, and how did you start?

 

[FurCoat]

I started when I was16. Back then it was legal to buy tobacco in NC at 16. Mind you, I didn't know what I was doing, but determined to learn how to smoke a pipe. My father had pipes which I used to learn since I couldn't afford to buy my own. By this time he had long given up pipes so he was non the wiser. I was always fascinated by pipes from a young age.

 

[Chasing Embers]

I started at 17 in '91 just to have a valid reason to talk to a redhead that worked at Rite Aid.

 

[Sweet Home Alabama]

A person gave me some pipes and tobacco as a house warming.

 

[sablebrush52]

I had to at least reach puberty.

 

[That Guy]

One word, exposure. Kind of like asking why didn't I join the skiing team while living in a state that receives no snow LOL. Everybody smoked cigarettes so as a teenager I smoked cigarettes along with other things ?. Didn't even really get into cigars until I was golfing alot and constantly getting a whiff of those delightful cigars. Didn't start smoking a pipe until I was staying with a friend in Mobile Al and working in pensacola Fl ( where my family thought we were going to move to). Waking up at 3:30 in the morning and driving an hour and a half to work everyday I needed something to help keep me awake and cigars were too expensive to smoke two or three a day so I started smoking a pipe. I-10 is a very boring drive and pipe smoking helped keep me awake and alert.

 

[Ahi Ka]

I had to at least reach puberty.

And barling didn’t start turning their own bowls to the early 1900s…

 

[Casual]

It didn’t seem cool until I was 50.

 

[solideogloria86]

I was a cigarette smoker from the age of 12. I quit when I was around 27. I didn't really want to risk messing around with smoking any tobacco. Around 2017 I wanted to smoke a good cigar, merely for flavor and enjoyment. Within a month I bought a pipe, because I couldn't afford to smoke a good cigar every day. Now my cigars sit neglected in the humidor and get smoked a couple times a year, because pipes are substantially, empirically, objectively, better than cigars.

 

[jpmcwjr]

Started at age 19, a college Sophomore. Put aside ca age 29, and resumed at about 70. And, ugh, cigs from 30-40, but under two packs a day.

 

[verporchting]

Because it was hard enough to get and keep the occasional cigars (Swisher Sweets) hidden from my folks as a 15-16 year old, lol.

I bough my first car at 15 but had to have an adult in the car to drive (like that stopped me ?) and I still remember getting busted with a box of them on the console.

Absolutely zero chance of sliding a pipe, tobacco, tamper, etc. by the parental units. Had to wait until I left home to buy my first pipe, but I knew from a very young child that I was always going to smoke a pipe because my great grandfather always smoked one and I absolutely loved the smell and watching him enjoy his pipes. Decided right then at about 5 or so that’s what I was going to do too. Pretty sure I’ve got an old photo or two in the attic of me sitting in his chair with him about that age with one of his (unlit) pipes in my mouth and a serious looking expression on my face like I knew what I was doing.

So yeah, logistics really was the only thing holding me back. If I could have started at 5 I probably would have. Good memories.

 

[tfdickson]

Because it was hard enough to get and keep the occasional cigars (Swisher Sweets) hidden from my folks as a 15-16 year old, lol.

I bough my first car at 15 but had to have an adult in the car to drive (like that stopped me ?) and I still remember getting busted with a box of them on the console.

Absolutely zero chance of sliding a pipe, tobacco, tamper, etc. by the parental units. Had to wait until I left home to buy my first pipe, but I knew from a very young child that I was always going to smoke a pipe because my great grandfather always smoked one and I absolutely loved the smell and watching him enjoy his pipes. Decided right then at about 5 or so that’s what I was going to do too. Pretty sure I’ve got an old photo or two in the attic of me sitting in his chair with him about that age with one of his (unlit) pipes in my mouth and a serious looking expression on my face like I knew what I was doing.

So yeah, logistics really was the only thing holding me back. If I could have started at 5 I probably would have. Good memories.

This is basically me, including the swisher sweets and first wheels at 15, just swap great grandfather for my Dad.

 

[warren]

I wasn't allowed to cross the railroad tracks in my bicycle and the pipe shop was three miles passed that.

 

[didimauw]

I started smoking a pipe at age 23. Cigarettes since 16.

Pipe smoking was fairly unheard of for me as a child. Never saw anyone do it.

But something I saw one day, like a random pipesandcigars.com ad or something and I remember seeing the cool pipe picture on the computer. And something went off like a light bulb in my head. Literally. Within 10 minutes I had a pipe and tobaccos ordered and on the way to my house. It was a freak incident and an impulse buy. But I absolutely loved it from the first minute.

 

[OzPiper]

I started when I was at University @20yo.
A lot of things seems cool or you imagine that girls would think it's cool when you're an undergrad

 

[anotherbob]

got my first pipe at 16. And I wish I would have started there and not cigs a few months earlier.

 

[Grovius]

I started last year. I have been enjoying cigars for years, but i used to think that pipes were too expensive and fussy to clean and maintain. Then I heared about Missouri Meerschaum, decided to give it a go and found out that Nightcap is difficult to beat.

 

[Morrison Jeremiah]

About 14 years ago go I felt that I needed to get off the ciggies, so I took up a pipe.
Couldn't get on with it at first, so I carried on with the ciggies for a while, and eventually became used to the pipe.
I love the flavours and aromas, the pipes themselves and all the ritual, but to be honest it's all about the nicotine.

 

[kcghost]

I waited until I was 28 and working on my masters to start a pipe.

 

[judcole]

I started almost as soon as I got to college. Part of being a "college man" and all that.