Pipe Smokers?

[cacunn]

When I was in college I started smoking a pipe. Now this was some 40 years ago so thing have changed.
After being drafted into the Army I was sent to artillery school and then to Vietnam. Since we could not get to the rear area and the Post Exchange (store) often we were issued sundry packs. These boxes contained, cigarettes, shaving supplies, soap etc. One of the items was Cherry Blend pipe tobacco. I didn't smoke cigarettes and no one else smoked a pipe I got all of the pipe tobacco in the battery.
Looking at most of the items in the sundry pack we believed that they were originally packed for the Korean war. The pipe tobacco was so old and dry that it would burn almost as fast as the artillery powder. It would take a large slice of apple (when available) and about 3 days before it would become moist enough to smoke.
When I got back for the service I went back to school and was living a my parents and working for them in a ceramic shop they had. At the time I was smoking a chocolate flavored tobacco. It was very smooth with a mild taste. I could never taste the chocolate. The funny part of it was that I would take a break and light up a bowl when there was a class being given. I would smoke watch the class and talk to the students. It was not long into the bowl that the students would all start looking for and talking about chocolate candy. It finally dawned on me that there was just enough chocolate aroma in my tobacco smoke to register in the subconscious but not enough to truly smell.
I could have made a fortune if I had purchased some Hershey bars and sold them during class as I enjoyed a bowl of fine tobacco.

[Clockwork John]

I found a tobacco kind of like that... it was sold as "black raspberry." I was a very heavy tobacco with an alost cigar-like flavour to is. The raspberry taste and aroma was quite clear, but there was... something else that I couldn't quite put my finger on. After sharing it with a few other pipe smokers I know, and asking around as I was smoking it, I figured out that the "something else" was chocolate. Barely enough chocolate to register, but man it went well with the raspberry flavour.

[Verlyn]

I've been smoking my pipes for 31 years now. I have about 50. I've found it you go to the pipe shops and look in the bargain basket, you can get a great second for about $25 or $30 and they smoke really well. While I was in college, I worked part time in a tobacco shop and the owner decided that since I wouldn't quite smoking my smelly English/Scottish blends, he was going to teach me how to blend tobaccos. Now, the local shop knows that I request my own blends and they have one that's close and I just add latakia to it. Nothing beats a fire in the fireplace, a good book, good drink and a pleasant partner. Fortunately, my good wife enjoys the smell of my pipes.

[Uncle Al]

To the begining pipe smoker,

Someone suggested the 'Corn-Cob pipe'. I've had a few, but will not
have any more - EVER!. If you smoke the tobacco to quickly or to 'hot',
the 'Cob' pipe will burn through the bottom VERY FAST! I've had a few
lighted pipe-fulls, fall into my lap--Not a pleasant thing to have happen!
A Dr. Grabo for $10-$15.00 is a good starter pipe. Be sure to take out
the metal 'filter' in the stem.

And remember-----Enjoy it, savor it, but don't over do it.
Smoke it Slow and Steady. You will be well pleased!

Uncle Al
Duncanville, TX

[Pleater]

OK -I confess - I used to smoke a pipe, occasionally - I did find it relaxing, but the reaction of the menfolk was quite amusing, I must say.

Part of my misspent youth.

[Riverkilt]

Messed with pipes in college. Had no clue what I was doing and couldn't master the art of keeping them lit. Tobacco's killed most of my parent's generation of my family. I took to it too. Went from 2-3 pacs of cigarettes to chain smoking and inhaling cigars. Once thought I'd been food poisoned. Went to the doc. He smelled me, drew blood, and told me I had nicotine poisoning. Quit.

Today, smoke a chanupa (peace pipe) loaded with kanikanik (herbs, no tobacco) after sweatlodge. Funny, as the pipe is passed around the circle we always have trouble keeping it lit. Maybe the long stem is the problem.

Ron

[BoldHighlander]

Messed with pipes in college. Had no clue what I was doing and couldn't master the art of keeping them lit. Tobacco's killed most of my parent's generation of my family. I took to it too. Went from 2-3 pacs of cigarettes to chain smoking and inhaling cigars. Once thought I'd been food poisoned. Went to the doc. He smelled me, drew blood, and told me I had nicotine poisoning. Quit.

Today, smoke a chanupa (peace pipe) loaded with kanikanik (herbs, no tobacco) after sweatlodge. Funny, as the pipe is passed around the circle we always have trouble keeping it lit. Maybe the long stem is the problem.

Ron

Wow, I can relate Ron. I use to be a 2 pack a day cigarette smoker when in my early-to-mid 20's. Quit due to two nasty bouts of pneumonia.

Never much of a pipe smoker, however did smoke one of the old (long stem) colonial clay pipes at reenactments on occasion. I was more of a cigar smoker, though usually for very special occasions (I see them as a "treat") & at ACW reenactments. One of the great pleasures was to sit around the campfire in the evening with my pards & share a fine smoke.

Haven't had one in years, though from time to time I feel the craving.

I do own a calumet ("peace pipe") made for me about 10 yrs ago by a Cherokee brother of mine (I'm a member of the Wolf Clan, Southern Cherokee Nation). It was originally furnished with a spiraled stem of red sumac, but as soon as I tested it I had an allergic reaction (sumac ), so he furnished me with a long straight stem of white cedar. The bowl is red catlinite that he acquired from the quarry @ the Pipestone National Monument in Minnesota where only people of Native American ancestry are allowed to quarry the pipestone.

My pipebowl has the traditional Plains shape:

though that one is of Salmon Alabaster.

Mine has the color of the finished bowl in this pic:


I haven't smoked it in years, but I don't recall ever having problems keeping mine lit (I don't remember anything special I did either ). Though I haven't smoked it in a spell, you can imagine its a treasured possession

[Nick]

Today, smoke a chanupa (peace pipe) loaded with kanikanik (herbs, no tobacco) after sweatlodge. Funny, as the pipe is passed around the circle we always have trouble keeping it lit. Maybe the long stem is the problem.

Ron

I have a few churchwardens, both clay and briar, and the long stem is usually a benefit. Keeping a pipe lit usually has more to do with proper packing, and smoking at the right rate. I've smoked calumets before, though filled with tobacco, and there wasn't a problem, maybe it's the combination of what's in the bowl.

[Bellfree]

I too enjoy pipesmoking. There's pleasure to standing in a kilt on the front porch looking out over the mountains, puffing on my pipe.

My favorite tobaccos are #5, Pipeworks & Wilke, in the morning using my H.A Jorgensen apple bowled half bent, and in the afternoon, #193, Pipeworks & Wilke, in my full bent Graco Stumpy. I also like MacBaren's Vintage Syrian tobacco and my old Stanwell pipe bought over 30 years ago when i was a college student at Vanderbilt.