Old school alternative to cigarettes

[RaverCJ]

So my trusty M401 finally enabled me to get down to 0 nic after being a pack-a-day Marlboro Medium smoker.

The other day, I picked up a cheap pipe from Dealextreme.com. I just wanted to try it. I still miss that tobacco flavor, but every time I have a cigar, I get nothing but glares and comments about how much I stink. I've filled it using some Prince Albert Cherry Vanilla, and I have to say, I absolutely love it. It's great not having those terrible nicotine cravings, but still being able to enjoy tobacco every once in awhile.

The only problem is I'm 20, so I get crazy weird glances when I walk around with a pipe in my mouth. It's really amusing though. Smoking a pipe feels almost like stopping time. The ritual of filling and maintaining my pipe even feels easier than all the maintenance, charging, changing of atomziers, etc. I had to go through with PV's.

I feel like people are too busy in this day and age of Facebook and Blackberry e-mail. Sitting on the porch behind my house smoking a pipe, I suddenly realized the crickets and birds chirping. I heard the wind. It was spectacular.

[TropicalBob]

We are brothers across the country, RaverCJ. After I quit cigarettes, I missed smoke, so I returned to pipes I tried back in my college days. And I found I loved them. I went on a buying spree, acquiring 40+ on eBay.

I spend my after-supper sunset hours sitting on my back or front porch, listening to cicadas crank up, noting the different bird calls, watching a rabbit munch on new weed growth in the backyard.

Nothing about e-smoking can equal those moments. The aroma, the taste, the feel of thick pipe smoke. And now I have again opened the world of wonderful pipe tobaccos to explore, to help maintain determination not to suck cigarette smoke into my lungs. Carter Hall in the mornings; latakia/cavendish blends in the evenings.

Amazingly, in public I get comments about how good it smells. "Not like that stinky cigarette smoke." The other day, I actually had a woman come up to me at Cracker Barrel and ask to smell the pipe I was using in a rocking chair. "Reminds me of my grandfather," she said with a smile.

What a far cry from the hand-waving, fake-coughing anti's I encountered regularly while a cigarette smoker.

Keep it up, my friend. Some have called the '90s the Decade of the Cigar. With recent tax hikes, we might be entering the Decade of the Pipe. Be proud to be leading the movement to a far, far safer alternative to cigarettes. I'm with you.

[sherid]

I have never smoked a pipe, but one of my earliest memories was sitting at our neighbor's home and begging, "Charlie, blow some smoke rings." He was quick to oblige, and watching it was wonderful. We did that inside too, and I did not die from shs. I rather believe that the care, maintenance, and preparation of e cigs is much like what goes into smoking a pipe.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=00mXP0i_1Ro

[mcooksy]

So, I've decided to try pipe smoking. TropicalBob made it sound quite nice
I was just wondering what would be some good types of starting tobacco since I'm sure their are going to be lots and lots at the smoke shop. Also, is it okay to start with a cheap plastic pipe or a corn cob pipe or something like that? Or would that alter the taste too much to tell if I actually enjoy it?