ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Monday, December 23, 1996 TAG: 9612230126
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
COLUMN: Ben Beagle
SOURCE: BEN BEAGLE
You may have heard about all those people who are switching to pipes, and I say right now 90 percent of them are inhaling and lying about it.
I know what I'm talking about. I once switched to pipes, and all the time I was looking sophisticated and witty, I was lying about inhaling.
I also burned a lot of holes in my clothes and sometimes got a little sick to my stomach from accidentally swallowing stuff.
(The people who were supposed to know about pipes told us to rub the bowls against our noses; that skin secretions conditioned the wood. Maybe. But it always seemed a little kinky to me.)
Once I took all my pipes and threw them into the woods, and 20 minutes later I was at the convenience store buying a pack of cigarettes.
Smoking cigarettes - once known as "jangies" in Radford - made me feel honest. Everybody knows that a cigarette smoker inhales and I didn't have to lie anymore to people who had accused me of inhaling my pipe.
It was awful.
You'd go to a party and think you were being very urbane with your pipe - maybe even rubbing it against your nose.
After the first vodka and tonic somebody would yell: "Look! Look! Bennie's inhaling his pipe again."
These people wouldn't have said a word if I had chain-smoked half a pack of cigarettes before I even tasted the cheese dip.
The Knight-Ridder/Tribune news service reported recently that there is such a thing as the Pipe Tobacco Council. Where were these guys when I needed them?
The council said 90 percent of pipe smokers are white males and 46 percent of them are college graduates. I don't know if they counted the English majors who threw their pipes away and went back to Winston Light 100s.
The news service said "many pipe smokers love the ritual and careful attention it takes to smoke a pipe."
Not me, boy. I fired up that sucker to get a nicotine bounce as soon as possible.
As for the "careful attention" part, we have already seen burned clothing as a reward for pipe smoking. And I always hated to clean one of those things - which you are supposed to do.
The gunk on the pipe cleaner was very ugly. You just threw cigarette butts away and all that sickening stuff was inside you where nobody could see it.
I'm no reformer, pal. Puff your pipe. Lie about inhaling.
I should care how silly you look rubbing your pipe against your nose?
LENGTH: Medium: 52 linesby CNB