My dad smoked a pipe. I think everyone’s dad smoked a pipe. But none of my contemporaries smoke a pipe — at least not a tobacco pipe. Like all smoking, pipe smoking has taken a hit in recent years.
However, for many years, smoking a pipe was as much about image as it was about smoking. College professors with tweed jackets, contemplative individuals, maverick film directors — a pipe was, for many of them, an important prop. Click on any image for a larger view.
Historians say that Native Americans were the first to use pipes to smoke tobacco. Supposedly it was for ceremonial use, but we know how addictive tobacco can be, so it’s hard to say just what constituted “ceremony.” Tobacco and the various ways to smoke it were quickly adopted by European explorers and exported to the Continent.
Sir Walter Raleigh, an English poet and explorer, is often credited with popularizing tobacco use, though others certainly paved the way. Poor Sir Walter ended up with his head chopped off, so we don’t really know if his smoking resulted in any ill health effects.
And while Prince Albert tobacco used to be the butt of many childish crank calls, the husband of Queen Victoria of England was not a particularly avid pipe smoker. Besides a famous brand of pipe tobacco, Prince Albert had a lot of products, body modifications, lakes, and other things named after him.
What do goats and bears have to do with pipes? You’ll have to go to page 2 to find out.
Return to page 1 of “Scanning Around With Gene: Put That in Your Pipe and Smoke It.”
It has been said that pipe smoking is less harmful than other forms of tobacco use. While that may be the case, I don’t really know. It does seem like pipe smokers spend much more time fiddling with the pipe, lighting the pipe, emptying the pipe, and filling the pipe than actually smoking it.
Puffing on a pipe is an art form. It can be a great substitute for conversation and buys time for anyone who needs to think a bit before replying to a question or statement. Pipe smokers are typically men of few words.
As a prop, pipes provide a wide variety of styles. There are classic pipes, ornately carved pipes, straight pipes, curved pipes, and pipes made from all different sorts of wood.
Pipe smoking seems particularly male, unless you count Granny in the Beverly Hillbillies television series. Unlike cigars, which have gained some female followers in recent times, it’s hard to find images of women smoking pipes.
I gather from these ads that a good pipe needs to be “broken in.” Some manufacturers even “pre-smoke” their pipes, taking out some of the “bite.”
It could be the tobacco pipe has had its day. I just hope there’s always at least one store in town where you can call and ask if they have Prince Albert in a can.
This article was last modified on May 17, 2023
This article was first published on July 24, 2009
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