Pipes and Other Things

 If anything happened to my pipes or my new cabinet or anything else I might own, they are only things.  I can live without things.  I don't drink enough alcohol to be an alcoholic, for example, so no, I don't need alcohol.  I'm writing this today as a reminder as to why I smoke a pipe.  I smoke a pipe for meditative purposes and for relaxation.  There are  no other reasons why I smoke a pipe.  I am not addicted to my pipes or the tobacco I put in them.  

It is a known fact  that cigarette smokers smoke cigarettes because they are addicted to them.  I watch a lot of YouTube videos and one video I watched was about tobacco commercials from the late fifties through the sixties.  Those commercials sold cigarettes as pleasure and enjoyment with no mention of nicotine in any of the two hour video of ads.  The emphasis was on what cigarettes could do for you.  A lot of research and planning went into the filters of cigarettes that did nothing more than to make the smoker believe they were positive for them.

But the filters did nothing to cut down on the nicotine and tar.  In comparing pipes to any other use of tobacco there is no comparison.  First of all, there are over some three to seven thousand various chemicals added to the tobacco in cigarettes that make them so addictive.  Secondly, while pipe tobacco is pure unadulterated tobacco, there is no comparison between pipe tobacco and cigarettes.  And further a pipe smoker does not inhale.  In fact, one can't make much of a comparison between pipe tobacco and cigars. 

I have said I am not an evangelist for pipe smoking.   In the two hour video of old tobacco ads, there were a few cigar commercials, but the editors of the video did not include pipe tobacco, because in my thinking, the pipe commercials of the day were at least somewhat classy.  But in regard to many cigarette commercials, the settings were usually outdoors in the fresh air.  So, cigarettes were perceived as being like a breath of fresh air, which they weren't, particularly indoors.  

There was a time when smoking was allowed on airlines.  In fact smoking was limited maybe is some theaters, but smoking was allowed most anywhere.  Not so today.  I smoke my pipe strictly outdoors.  But if I were to smoke my pipe indoors and not smoke it for a couple of days, in that amount of time any traces of pipe aroma would be completely gone.  

No, I don't have to have my pipes and if something happened to my cabinet and collection, it would not be the end of the world for me.  I can live without my pipes.  But I think of a pipe as a useful tool.  Today is Sunday and I gave myself a choice between my smoking my Savinelli Churchwarden pipe or my Olive wood pipe with my Good Stuff mix.  I chose my Olive wood pipe that I must smoke very carefully making sure it does not get too hot so the wood won't scorch.  It is a relatively warm morning this morning.  We watched a local weather cast the other day.  The weatherman said we had winter temperatures with a high of 88.  I hope its warm where you are.  Thank you for your time and Peace to each one of you.

Dave