Pipe Smoking Trends

 A lot of older pipe smokers began in their college years, sometimes smoking a pipe in the classroom.  An old pipe smoker said he had a friend in high school who put a note in his yearbook saying he smoked a pipe and thought of himself as an intellectual.  Hugh Heffner did a lot for the Playboy pipe smoking image, because as one pipe ad at the time said, the chicks dig it.  One reason for the decline of pipe smoking was that the chicks quit digging it.  Women got turned off by tobacco.  So, the pipe lost its cool factor.

But back in the day, if a guy smoked a pipe he was thought to be intelligent and cool.  There might be some degree of sophistication attached to pipe smoking, but today it's just a hobby to most.  It's not a lifestyle.  Back in the day a pipe was an accessory that men wore like a badge of honor.  But that was when one could smoke anywhere and the pipe smoker stood apart from the crowd.  There are only about three million of us today and we're hard to find. 

I actually thought of reactivating my Facebook account so I could join the 1600 on the pipe smoking forum there.  But I won't.  I'm not interested in belonging.  I gave up on that long ago.  I probably have all the pipes I will ever need, although I thought about getting a Dr. Grabow pipe with some Captain Black just to see what it was like when I first began smoking a pipe.  My first pipe wasn't a Dr. Grabow, but the tobacco at the time was always over the counter stuff.  But I would drop in at the Tinder Box at the mall and pick up something the tobacconist might recommend.  It was always an ounce or two of this or that.  

But times have changed and finding a Tinder Box these days is difficult at best.  I smoked my pipe in our apartment in seminary until I was told not to smoke anymore by the dean of students.  But I've always been a rebel and believed I could smoke my pipe anywhere I wished.  Now most apartment communities are non-smoking.  But I always felt that if Bing Crosby coukd smoke his pipe anywhere he wished I could too.  And I believed that up to the early nineties.  

A lot of the old pipe smokers began dying off and the pipe dropped put of favor except for the hobbiests of today.  Most smoke a bowl or two a week instead of the five or more bowls a day as it was.  Some pipe smokers were never seen without a pipe.  Mark Twain is known for both pioes and cigars, while others like Bing Crosby were known for just pipes.  George Burns was never seen without a cigar and he lived to be 100.  

But so many men were known for their pipes.  Women did smoke pipes, but so few are known today.  Pipe smoking has been almost strictly for males.  Savinelli makes a pipe in honor of Ginger Rodgers known as Ginger's Favorite.  But I can't find anything about her smoking a pipe.  She may have had a favorite style she liked the best.  Savinelli has a pipe named for Clark Gable called Clark's Favorite.  But pipe smoking has been dominated by male figures.  

I'm smoking my Peterson System pipe this morning and apart from my investment in my pipes, my wife would prefer I not smoke a pipe.  Some tobaccos she tolerates like my Tropical Export or Autumn Evening and she might put up with a tobacco reminiscent of days gone by.  But she might be pleased if I gave up my pipes all together, but she knows how much I enjoy a pipe.  The fact is pipe smoking definitely isn't what it once was.  That is a fact.  Women tend to not dig it.  Thank you for your time and Peace to each one of you.

Dave