Interbational Pipe Smoking Day

 Today is George Washington's Birthday.  I could mention he probably smoked pipes in the pubs of early America, as it would have been a custom carried over from England.  This past Tuesday was International Pipe Smoking Day, and I could kill two birds with one stone, so to speak, by writing about pipe smoking and George Washington.  But George Washington isn't known for having smoked anything, so, I'll mention it in passing and simply move on.  Happy Burthday George, wherever you are in the cosmic universe!  

Pipe Smoking Day is over and I didn't smoke my pipe Tuesday, as we were staying at a place that simply didn't allow for it.  I had packed my Angel pipe as we left Monday afternoon and I could have smoked my pipe, but it was against the home owner's rules if I had.  So, I chose not to.  In past years I always knew when the day was as I celebrated that day with pipe smokers the world over by smoking a pipe.  

But I did have my Angel pipe with me and knew what day Tuesday was.  But I'll mention a video I saw last night on the history of smoking in the Walt Disney world.  Walt Disney was an avid smoker of cigarettes, which took his life with cancer at a very young age of 65.  But in today's world the Disney company has tried to hide the history of smoking in the Walt Disney world by removing any references to smoking in all its cartoons and references to Disney himself as to never have smoked.  

Try as the current Walt Disney company might to erase as references to smoking, the fact can't be hidden that Disney was an avid smoker, mostly of cigarettes.  Cartoons used to depict Goofy as having smoked cigars and pipes and even Mickey has been portrayed as having smoked cigarettes.  These facts are historical.  There was a time when Disney Land first opened that smoking was allowed on the grounds of Disney Land and even then there was a tobacco shop on Disney Land's Main Street.  

I learned a lot from watching this video on the topic of smoking in the Walt Disney Kingdom.  In the sixties, when it was known that cigarettes caused cancer, Disney parks designated certain areas to smoking and the tobacco shop in Disney Land was replaced by a souvenir shop.  But before that time Disney Land even had their own pipes, cigarettes, and boxes of Cuban seed cigars all saying they were purchased at Disney Land.

Once Disney World was opened in the early seventies, smoking was allowed only in designated areas of both parks and sales of anything related to tobacco became prohibited and Disney stopped selling pipes, cigars, and cigarettes in both parks.  But at first Disney even had cigarette machines located throughout Disney Land.  Disney produced a public service campaign against smoking in 1951.  

All that has changed today.  There is now a smoking area in both parks that is located outside the parks.  It just shows you how attitudes about smoking has shifted in the past 40 years or so.  I have my own smoking areas now wherever we have been in the past 15 years or so, with no indoor smoking at all.  However, I'm an old retired guy who just so happens to still smoke a pipe.  Our numbers have dwindled from a high in the sixties of some 35 million pipe smokers to now about three million of us that still do, with Vaping becoming more common.  

Things have changed over the years.  Disney can't just erase its history with smoking, because it's there, but they're trying.  So, I continue to smoke a pipe, simply because I find it both enjoyable and relaxing.  Today it is my Peterson Sherlock Holmes pipe with some Yorktown Virginia based English tobacco in honor of George Washington.  Some traditions simply won't die and I DO hope there are those who will continue the traditions of pipe smoking.  Thank you for your time and Peace to each one of you.

Dave