Pining for the Old Days

It has been ages since I have engaged with the online pipe smoking community. It is easy to look back with fondness on the time I spent watching videos, reading blogs, and connecting with other pipe smokers on social media. It was what inspired me to start this blog. Pipe smoking really is an odd combination of social and private. No one else is needed to enjoy a pipe, yet it is fun with others. 

The days I remember were great. Those in the community were never monetized, and no one seemed interested in fame or fortune. It was just a group of people who enjoyed the hobby and were looking for others with whom to share it. Some vestiges remain, but few people continue to post. I am sure it still exists...on some new app or website. Truth be told the place that it occupied in my life is largely filled. Family, work, and advancing age have all cut my smoking time and social needs down significantly. 

I have also learned that the promise of social media and the connections it offered are of a distinctly different nature than we may once have expected. Once projected to be the Neuromancer, Ready Player One, playground for making meaningful connections, it proved to be less personal than it once was. All of this is because money got involved. A lot of money. 

Various social media sites were a unique opportunity to meet new people, keep up with friends, gather into groups based upon our interests and dreams. Now it seems focused upon gaining an audience. No one had even heard of an influencer, much less think of it as a legitimate career. The world has changed. I would not say that it got better or worse, just different. 

Websites were better. Before every site was built to make money there were sites that were just silly. Fewer sites had logins, cookies, and advertisement. People were just excited to put something out into cyberspace and be thrilled that anyone else would be able to see it. Now, I haven't surfed the internet for weird and wonderful for years. It is behind a paywall, it is all strictly professional. Social media took over the part of the internet that had me visiting blogs on the weekly. Podcasts went from being a basement affair to big business. Videos started including a striking amount of advertisers. People started asking for viewers to comment, like, and subscribe...and give them money on Patreon. Of course the most amazing thing to me is that people actually do it.  I have never once been compelled to give someone money just to watch them make videos from their basement. 

Then the "I'm quitting!" videos started to show up. How very odd. What we used to do for fun became too taxing. Content creation was no longer recreation...it became business. Did people stop doing things for fun or did those who were in it for the money crowd them out? It isn't just on the internet, it is a phenomenon in the western world. Everything is about money, and few are motivated by simple joyous desire to make connections and talk about the things that enrich our lives. 

I wonder if the thing I remember is still out there. I can't say that I would want to go back to making a few videos or blog posts a week as it took time. As my children grow up I have a bit more independence. I could make a video or throw a thought out into the world now and again. I never thought I would be a dinosaur so soon. Looking back at those simple frivolous moments thinking, talking, and writing about pipes and tobacco I do have fond memories. 

Just to keep on theme, I have been enjoying my cobbit pipe by Missouri Meerchaum. And I have been smoking Brian Fox, Captain Black Royal, and a local pipe shop bulk tobacco called Collins Comfort. The brotherhood of the briar still calls to me in my memories. And I rarely enjoy a pipe without also thinking about my old online friends. 

Giving it Away

Have you done your pipe duty?  I find that I am something of an evangelistic pipe smoker.  I don't mean to be, I just have a tendency to want to spread understanding for the great benefits and pleasures of pipe smoking.  It comes rather naturally.  In a recent discussion with a friend I determined that he needed to enjoy the "thinking tool" of a pipe.  Upon finding out that he was open to the idea I made the "starter kit".  This kit included a country gentleman Missouri Meerschaum (a dear favorite of mine), and two very user-friendly starter tobaccos (Black Watch from Edwards and Black and Gold from Altadis).  I directed him to a couple of "how to" videos on youtube.  I feel as if I failed in the one major aspect of sharing that first smoke with him, nevertheless sometimes we do only what we can.

I find people are interested in pipes, and in pipe smoking.  How do you answer their questions?  What would you put in your "starter kit" for a new smoker?  Greater men than I have taken the time to eschew the virtues of pipe smoking, but I earnestly believe the world would be a slightly better place if more people enjoyed a quiet evening, in a thoughtful spot, with a bowl full of good tobacco.

Pipe Depression

I'm not depressed, I am simply pipe depressed.  I haven't wanted to have a pipe in weeks.  I have had a few bowls, but mostly for fellowship's sake (that is with company).  My tobacco stores are drying out, though I am taking some time to care for them.  My thoughts have simply been elsewhere.  When I have smoked I can only stand to smoke my personal 'magic tobacco' Black Watch.  I call it my personal magic tobacco because no matter how many tobaccos I try, and no matter how delicious they are, Black Watch is the place of my continual return.  It is my True Tobacco.  

It is not universally well reviewed.  I have shared some with many friends with hot, cold and totally ambivalent response.  Yet this is the only thing I want to smoke right now.  This is strange.  If you follow the blog you know that I have always had an insatiable lust for new tobaccos, new blends and new experiences.  Yet it seems that I am settling comfortably in (for the time being, at least) to my old standard, the first tobacco I ever really fell in love with. 

I think the "depression" will go.  I have felt a surge in the last two days to enjoy a pipe (though only Black Watch).  Yet it seems strange to me that I can involuntarily lose interest in something that has brought me so much pleasure and thoughtful opportunity.  I imagine the recent increase in volume at work and at home have contributed.  Yet, there it is.  Please tell me, is this experience known to you?  I'm not worried (as much as I am slow to accept the idea that pipe smoking is terribly damaging, I do believe moderating it at times is productive) it just seems quite strange to me.

Where has the love gone?  Russia and Rome.

In the past months I have read (or been reading) War and Peace, The Metamorphoses (Ovid), and the Brothers Karamazov.  I have found them all so interesting and appealing that I have not wanted to leave my indoor room to go out and interrupt my reading with smoking.  Quite interesting in deed.  I won't bore you with my thoughts on the books, but sufficed to say I wouldn't draw a moment of them back and plan to look at each again in the course of my life.

I leave you with one other summer literary discover on my most recent jaunt through Walden by Thoreau:

Light-winged Smoke, Icarian bird,

Melting thy pinions in they upward flight,

Lark without song, and messenger of dawn,

Circling above the hamlets as thy nest;

or else, departing dream, and shadowy form

Of midnight vision, gathering up thy skirts;

By night star-veiling, and by day

Darkening the light and blotting out the sun;

Go thou my incense upward from this hearth,

And ask the gods to pardon this clear flame.

Tell the Story and Don't Rush

One of my favorite moments in C.S. Lewis's The Chronicles of Narnia is found in "A Horse and His Boy" (I could not pick a favorite moments, nor even narrow it down to a top 50).  However, the two horses and their respective humans meet and resolve to tell confide their stories to one another and Bree (the horse mentioned in the title) invites his new friend Aravis to tell her story.  "And don't rush, I'm feeling comfortable."  I think I love smoking pipe in part because it encourages storytelling.  I love hearing a good story, not a gossipy story, but a story about an adventure.  I recently had a great opportunity to hear a great story.


  I was smoking my church warden filled with 3 Oaks by McClelland and my friend his 1/2 bent rusticated pipe with Irish Flake.  We had a pot of Golden monkey loose leaf tea and there was very little wind.  It was warm but not hot (a welcome change) and the stars shone brightly.


  While pipes smoked and cups steamed I heard all about an incredible adventure in Hungary.  About a people untouched by the power of the gospel who got to hear.  About the surprises and unexpected turns of events that worked out to be even greater adventures of greater impact.  The whole affair was the finest way I could imagine spending an evening.  I could have listened to the story all over again.  We closed the evening catching up on summer reading.  Unrushed conversation over a cup of tea and a pipe is easily one of life's great and simple pleasures.