Winning over a non-pipe smoker
I've got a few friends who smoke cigars, but have a thing about smoking a pipe. Not a surprise there I suppose but to my delight and with a little persistence, one or two of them have come around to at least try out a pipe. There are those who will never try anything new, but I've found giving the non-believers updates on the great pipe club meetings I go to once a month keeps it in front of them and may eventually bear some fruit. How far have you gone to try to convince friends or family to experience the hobby?
Comments
I don't even try. It's like trying to persuade a gun hunter to become a bowhunter. Considering the level of hard work, dedication, and commitment that bowhunting endeavors, they either want to pursue it, or they don't.
It really all comes down to personal satisfaction.
https://thispipelife.com/us/tpl/forum/index.php?p=/discussion/896/should-one-have-a-guest-pipe#latest
:-)
I don't think the OP is talkin about gettin folks to stop eating bacon and start wearing a beanie cap. I'm pretty sure his intentions were genuinely looking for ways to share something he enjoys with his friends.
As to the hobby????
I never really understood that. Hobbies are wearing the bib overalls and watching little trains go around in circles. Hobbies are dressing up like Aquawoman and goin to Comicon.
Pipe smoking, Lunting, to me is more akin to drinkin an awesome glass of Glenrothes Scotch or enjoyin a nice glass of Vision Cellars Pinot Noir.
Now, my penchant for resurrecting old estate briars.... Yeah, that's probably a hobby.
@Bonanzadriver I whole-heartedly subscribe to this notion of pipe smoking as a hobby. Like I've often said, early on I was a 'pipe smoker' plain and simple. I bought a few ounces of tobacco from Tinder Box or a convenient OTC blend at a drug store or supermarket and smoked till the package was empty - then went out and bought another pouch. Very little thought went into it. Once I discovered the YouTube Pipe Community and became more informed about the types of tobaccos, proper smoking techniques, collecting and refurbishing estate pipes, the vast array of on-line stores, and discovering simple things like rehydrating dry tobacco which I might have otherwise threw away, and creating my own unique new blends with Watkins food grade flavor extracts ... my interest in pipe smoking went to another level. And much like other hobbyists you describe who acquire collections such as the trains and going to Comicon my pipe smoking developed into a passion. My 66 year old brain was reactivated as I began learning new things. I found myself on a quest as I acquired different and exotic blends previously unavailable to me. Some I liked ... others not so much. Always experimenting and fine tuning my palate. And as with any 'hobbyist', be it collecting salt and pepper shakers or fine wine, I was always looking for that special something to add to my collection. You'll feel the transition from 'pipe smoker' to pipe hobbyist' slowly creep up on you when you're no longer satisfied with one or two blends stashed away in a humidor - but wants to experience all the hobby has to offer. Which explains why some here have a cellar with 60 blends or more. They are not just 'pipe smokers' but bona fide 'pipe enthusiast'.
The day will comes when someone eyeballs your acquisition of tobacco blends and tosses around the phrase excessive or borderline obsessive; that's when you know you've unwittingly gone from 'pipe smoker' to 'pipe enthusiast'. And accepting the label of 'pipe hobbyist' or 'enthusiast' is far better alternative than the less eloquent words that question the sanity of a person with 50 pounds of pipe tobacco in their possession.
People from the outside looking into the world of the hobbyist see a person with a few loose screws and inevitably spout off with comments like "why would any adult have so many Beanie Babies", "isn't it about time he or she outgrew collecting comic books and trading cards", "I can't believe a grown man is still playing with trains", and my personal favorite ... "how many pipes does one man need" - or - "that's more tobacco than you'll smoke in a lifetime". If you find yourself on the other end of that conversation ... like it or not ... whether you want to admit it or not ... you're a 'pipe hobbyist'.
And when someone asks me why I have so many different type of tobacco I'll respond with ... "Would you be willing to go through life eating nothing but carrots? Me neither. I like variety with the food I eat - and tobacco I smoke. After all, Baskin-Robbins has 31 flavors of ice cream."
I guess it's a Poe Tay Toe / Poe Tah Toe sorta thing. :-P
As for the TAD/PAD/EPRD.... Yeah, I got it bad
The reason I view pipes as a hobby is that there is a collectable side to pipe smoking. You collect pipes and tobacco, and they're something you keep that doesn't disappear after a single use. When I was young, I had a friend who's father collected pipes, but I never knew him as a pipe smoker.
Some people get into the hobby because they want to collect pipes. That's kind of how I got into it. I was more interested in pipes, pipe brands, and pipe shapes. Pipe tobacco was an after thought, something I picked out after choosing my first pipe. I intended to try pipe smoking, but if I didn't like it, I still wanted to collect pipes. Since I enjoyed smoking a pipe, I became both pipe enthusiast and pipe smoker.
@Charles The Feds sure have made it hard for us smokers. Health issue, they claim. Haven't seen another pipe smoker in years. Occasionally may see a cigar smoker passing me in his car or truck. And on occasions I'll see some poor cigarette smoker standing behind the store or restaurant where he or she works, isolated like a leper smoking next to the trash bin. All because the Federal Government has deemed smoking a health hazard. And I'm not disputing that. But go down Burdon Street in New Orleans on any given night and you'll see people passed out on the sidewalk in a puddle of their own urine and vomit as likeminded tourists sidestep the puddles. As a matter of fact you don't need to go all the way to New Orleans to see the effects of alcohol over-indulgence, most urban big cities have their variation of skid row. And even small towns in rural areas. If you're brave enough to walk with me down sections of my hometown Gary, Indiana you'll see that and much worse.
But the Government is doing their part to keep the citizens of the USA safe from the evils of tobacco and second hand smoke. And we've seen the gradual extinction of the smoker through their efforts - yet the gutters outside nightclubs and bars are still littered with binge drinking college kids and middle-age chronic alcoholics - a hearty species that's as active as ever ... and apparently in excellent health. At least the Feds must think so - there are no impending FDA Deeming Regulations against breweries or distilleries.
Tobacco, on the other hand, is a different matter. Tobacco help finance America from it's beginning by being sold and / or traded for goods. Government regulation became more forceful in the 1990s as a means to control the people and force them to "pay for the privilege" to smoke in the form of taxes. Taxes on tobacco products steadily increased as a means to control people's habits and lifestyles as well as tapping into a source of government revenue. Tobacco will never be outlawed but it will continue to be controlled since it is a cash cow for the government coffers. Citing health reasons and resting on that reasoning makes it that much easier for public acceptance. While I agree that people should have a choice as to whether they want to be exposed to secondhand smoke, there should also be a choice to smoke in public places as was once the case.
Most, if not all socialist countries control the people's healthcare through laws and regulations while banning tobacco use altogether or at best, severely limiting it's use. Germany, in the 1930s, abolished smoking altogether, even though most smokers still smoked when they could find tobacco. The American Cancer Society, Inc., World Health Organization (WHO), and International Union Against Cancer are largely the big three in control. See http://www.who.int/tobacco/global_data/country_profiles/Introduction.pdf for more about them and their cause and control.
Tobacco control should be in the form of what chemicals are allowed to be mixed in tobacco such as in the manufacturing of cigarettes. Filters should also be studied as to their effectiveness and overall safety. There was a time in the 1950s where micronite filters were once used. Those filters container asbestos and were one of the contributing causes of asbestosis and mesothelioma. Not only was this filter dangerous to smokers, but also to the people who worked in the factories where the cigarettes were assembled. It is no longer used but most filtered cigarettes are filtered with some sort of fibrous filter as apposed to a paper filter.
The U.S. Government has way too much control over people's habits. Regulations can be a good thing if properly applied and to the right circumstances as in use of materials, chemicals, and production methods that affect the end user. They are not effective when used to control people's use while allowing the manufacturing to continue in a reckless manner. Tobacco regulations, fast food, sugar tax (big here in Phila., PA), environment, you name it and the government regulates it. It's time for government to regulate itself from intrusion into people's lives. People have rights, non-smokers have rights as well as smokers too. It's time we smokers get back our rights. Eliminate the amount of carcinogens tobacco produces, especially in cigarettes, by eliminating the toxic chemicals used to case the tobacco. As to cigars and pipe tobacco, I know of no added chemicals in their manufacturing and blending. It seems that both cigar and pipe smokers have a longer life expectancy then cigarette smokers.
My anger and frustration is causing me to rant so this is probably a good place to end. Thanks!
@PappyJoe Sorry ... I know it's Bourbon Street but my fingers apparently didn't while I was typing. And as for the comment on my personal observations as to the vanishing pipe smoker, I mention that because decades ago I'd bump into dozens of pipe smokers during the course of a week ... oftentimes a few during a single day. I'd regularly see men walking their dog, mowing the lawn, sitting on a bench waiting for a bus, riding a bicycle, playing in the park with their kids, ringing up a cash register, or just chatting up a girl with a pipe in their mouth. It was as common as a kid revving up the engine of his muscle car at a stop light.
During the heydays of the 60s' there was an area in Chicago most of us Hippy types would visit called 'Olde Town' which was loaded with counter culture head shops selling posters, tie-died T-shirts, and paraphernalia of a dubious nature, art galleries, record shops, restaurants, taverns galore, odd shops like 'The Pickle Barrel' where there would be free peanuts and the shells would be scattered across the wooden floor as part of the décor - and of course pickles in a barrel. And if memory serves me right in a popular area of 'Olde Town' called 'Piper's Alley' there was either a Wax Museum or Ripley's Believe It Or Not, as well as The Music Box Theater. And walking among the throngs of people you'd see pipe smokers (not pot smokers) quite commonly intermingled in the crowds.
So I think the reason I mention the absence of pipe smokers incessantly is because I vividly recall the presence of pipe smokers as a part of the bustling community throughout a good portion of my life. Pipe smokers encompassed all age categories, walks of life, and race - including fathers and grandfathers, middle-aged businessmen in suit and tie, the flannel shirt trucker or handyman, farmers in bib overalls, hard hat construction and mill workers, the book shop owner and department store clerk; the tattooed Carny worker operating the Ferris wheel, and the twenty-something college age students strolling the campus. The pipe smoker was not an oddity.
So for a person like myself, who has remained in relatively the same general location for the bulk of his life - to suddenly find a swatch of the population erased from public view in what seems like the blink of an eye, well ... it's about as jarring as coming to terms with the fact that the telephone booth and public telephones have disappeared from the landscape as well. Changes often creep up on you ... and it's only when you become less self-absorbed, existing in that invisible bubble encased around you, and suddenly take notice of the changes occurring outside that circle of safety do you realize ... "hey, something isn't right here".
As I'm sitting here breaking in a couple of new Bulldogs, that I recently acquired @ the Dr. Grabow Factory tour, I doing so with CH.
Man what a great blend this is. Especially when you let it dry out a bit.
I don't know why I don't smoke it more often. Great flavor, nice room note and no bite!