From: Steve Masticola (??????????????????????????)
Subject: Other legal smokes, and tales of youth

Dave Davis writes:

> Now, in this period of waning tobacco use, I wonder what other herbs
> might prove interesting (though I don't want to be *too* surprised!)
> to throw in a pipe; for instance, my father always said that they
> tried smoking tea leaves and corn silk when they were kids.

I've tried both, again when I was a kid. Corn silk burns very hot; tea
leaves are just nasty (at least the ones in tea bags are - never tried
the loose variety.) I've also heard of people trying to get high by
smoking catnip. It apparently takes a large amount to feel any buzz
and is a very unpleasant smoke.

Cigarettes with clove or incense used to be popular in the 60s,
probably to cover the aroma of other types of burning vegetation. :-)
Never tried these; has anyone else?

I think that almost everyone who now smokes a pipe probably tried
"non-tobacco materials", as they say on the El Productos, when they
were kids. Which brings up another topic: how did y'all start smoking
a pipe? I'll go first.

I started pretty young. The first time I remember having a pipe in my
mouth was when I was about five. (No, it wasn't loaded at the time!)
There had been a cartoon on featuring a little character who had a
pipe from which issued not smoke, but _pies_ (got the pun?) Being an
imitative kid, I grabbed my father's dime-store straight bulldog and
put a piece of pie in it to see if I could repeat the feat. I don't
remember getting spanked for it :-)

Around 8 or so, I read "Tom Sawyer" and, again in imitation, started
trying to make my own.  I'd use corncobs, or a piece of 2x4, drilled
out with a spade bit and saber-sawed into a rough cylinder, with a
milkweed stem. I'd then get something to smoke in it (tea, loose
cigarette tobacco, and even sometimes "Old Briar" raided from my
father's pouch), and go out to a convenient woods and attempt to
smoke. The taste must have been phenomenally awful!

At about that time, a neighbor kid told me that he smoked his father's
pipes all the time. I believed him until I asked to watch him. He just
mumbled about not knowing when he was going to smoke. (My guess was it
wouldn't be for the next several years.) But until then, I was
properly envious!

I bought a pipe ostensibly for my dad's birthday when I was 13, but of
course I really wanted it for my own use. With some trepidation, I
announced this to my mom, who advised me to get my father's old pipe
and smoke it (expecting me to fall over coughing, no doubt!) Well, I
did so, nervously and without enjoying it much, but without obvious
ill effects (except much embarrassment!) Later, I kind of wished the
whole thing had never happened, and didn't smoke again for some time.
The new pipe was delivered to my dad, but I think he knew what was up.
:-) But I must admit I'm still a bit embarrassed to smoke around other
people, especially my folks.

My first "proper" pipe followed me at 15, and smoked it through the
final years of high school and my first time at college. I still have
it - like Brad Blumenthal's, it's shaped like ~\V, a typical teenage
wizard-in-training pipe. :-) (On the downside, it smokes hot and has a
thin shank which has now acquired a crack.) Though I don't smoke it
very much anymore, it remains my oldest friend among the briars.

Now that I'm all grown up (physically, anyway!) and may eventually
start a family, I sometimes wonder how I'll deal with them about
smoking. I'd want to avoid a double standard ("I can smoke but you
shouldn't!"), and I'd also want them to avoid cigarettes! So, if they
just had to smoke, I'd try to steer them toward a pipe (girls, too,
though I'd clue them in on the realities about being thought "wierd".
Personally, I don't think pipes are inherently masculine, and have
thought that the few female pipe smokers I've seen have brought it off
rather well. But this is digressing...)

Until they got to be of age, I think it would be proper to say,
"Smoking is really for grown-ups only, but I'd rather have you smoking
here with us than sneaking around. So, if you want to smoke, just come
and ask me to borrow one of my pipes. But it's to be pipes only, and
only in the house, and you've got to ask." (That is, unless I marry a
woman who smokes cigarettes, in which case, "pipes only" is going to
be tougher on the integrity.)

But all this is down the road. Do any of you have children? If so, how
do you deal (or plan to deal) with them about smoking? Please
follow-up if you can.

Until next time, then,

					Smoke in peace,

					~\U Steve.