What Decade Did You Begin Smoking a Pipe?

June 20, 1974.

Back when I was a teenager, my buddy Steve Parsons was trying for weeks to get me to try pipe smoking, knowing I had my father’s old pipe. He wanted someone to enjoy smoking with. Finally, he said, “Just try it, and if you don’t like it, I’ll never bug you again about it.” I said, “Anything to shut you up, Steve.” On June 20, 1974, he had a small still which was brewing his alcohol, and we were checking it about that time. The reason I remember the day is obvious. The reason I know the exact time I had my first bowl of pipe tobacco (1:30 p.m) is because I'm an infamous clock watcher, and when I lit up for the first time, I looked at my watch as I often do, and in this case, to record the moment so I could bitch Steve out if I hated it, which I obviously didn't. Btw, the tobacco he handed was Borkum Riff Bourbon Whiskey, which was half decent in those days if you puffed slowly.

Steve wanted me to try the batch, and I said, "You are out of your freakin' mind, buddy. You made it, you try it." He wouldn't. He fed a sample to a mouse, and the mouse died. That ended that experiment. But, I enjoyed that tobacco, and was forever hooked on pipe smoking. I did bitch Steve out after high school when he quit smoking, and I was a lone smoker. I never let him forget it to this day.

Lit my very first bowl On November 30, 2014 After coming out of a showing of Dumb and Dumber To.


Lets just say my starting smoking was the highlight of that day. Boy was that movie a letdown.

I voted mid 90s but the answer is deceiving.

As a kid like 10 years old or so, my dad got me and my brothers small little corn cob pipes which we loved.

In the 80s I took up smoking pipe for a little less than a year, and wondered away from it.

In the mid 90s I took up cigars, and then pipes. Been smoking ever since.

It is only recently that I joined not only pipe smoking, but also the "hobby of pipe smoking". Until then i smoked my Mixture 79 and my match Brindley's Mixture and my cigars and concentrated on other things. In particular I never consulted the internet about it.

But then three or four years ago I started to really pay attention, try stuff, and poke around the internet for information and opportunities.

The same day tobacco reviews started?

Lots of folks still out and about who were born in the 1930s and 1940s.

Would be a neat thing for an old codger to be able to say " I have been smoking a pipe longer than Alaska or Hawaii have been states"

late 60's or 70's

He would equate it with talking about your favorite brand of undershirt or something. LOL

Sounds good to me.  Sign him up

I was 12 and it was in 1957.  PA and a cob.  It was my birthday, May 11

It's great to see so many younger guys joining the ranks.

OMG......don’t blame you! I’ve never smoked marijuana, but on the day I walked out of Dumb and Dumber I most likely would of hung out with Cheech & Chong and smoked a fatty......lol

By numbers yes, but you had online tutoring to figure out pipe smoking. Us pre internet smokers have you on years.😁  As to a future, all of the FDA and WHO garbage saddens me for the new guys.