Why Did I Get Into It?

 I have been smoking a pipe off and on for 50 years.  My wife read yesterday's article and she asked me how I got into smoking a pipe.  She wondered why I wanted to go to that Rod and Pipe Shop and buy a pipe along with all the other stuff to go with it.  I sat for a moment and looked at her and simply said that I have no idea.  First of all, it was fifty years ago, and secondly, I said I've always been a rebel.  But why that day I went to that shop to buy a pipe as I did, I have no idea.

I don't come from a line of pipe smokers.  In fact, as we were talking about it, I told her I had one recollection of a pipe smoker in my childhood.  He was a milinister in a neighboring town, of whom my dad said, was always sucking on that old pipe.  I can recall many examples of cigarette smoking, but not really pipe smoking.  But why on that late fall day I decided to buy a pipe, I honestly don't recall.

I don't know if it was something my then fiancee was talking about, or if there was something that prompted me to take up the pipe.  I had worked as a busboy at a local fancy restaurant and I don't know if the images of older men smoking a pipe after a meal and politely discussing among themselves was an influence or not.  I just don't know.  And I don't know where I got the money to buy that pipe and all that went with it.  I remember I had my MG at the time and I was working at a full-time job, so it may have been the following year after graduation when I had more money.

For me to say when I bought my first pipe might have been after college when I was gainfully employed.  I know there were men at my place of employment who smoked pipes.  Maybe I wanted to be like them.  I just don't know.  But in all these years I still smoke a pipe and do not regret it one bit.  It has become a simple pleasure.  I gave it up for awhile, but went back to it.  I have smoked cigars in leiu of a pipe, but decided they were too expensive.  

At that time in my life, there were many influences for my taking up the pipe.  I don't know why that particular shop and I don't know why that particular time.  But through the years, while going off and on pipe smoking, it seems to have just been a part of me one way or another.   I could have taken it or leave it for most of that time.  But since the early eighties, it has been pretty much a big part of my lifestyle.  

There was a time a pipe was considered to be masculine and part of a wardrobe.  But now pipe smoking is something one does alone and as a hobby.  In fact,most pupe smokers are largely unseen.  There are clubs and organizations pipe smokers can take part, but a pipe smoker today largely are unknowns.  I smoked a bowl yesterday, being cautious where we now live.  Thank you for your time and Peace to each one of you.

Dave