Tobacco and Me

In a social media discussion of the Very Rev’d George Conger’s somewhat lighthearted comments about the Rev’d Calvin Robinson’s bowler hat and pipes (I’ve been known to don a bowler and I like my pipes) in an otherwise serious and very vital discussion on Anglican Unscripted, a friend commented that when he was a student at Westminster Theological Seminary it was conventional wisdom that theological liberals (Tillich) smoked cigarettes, those of a neo-orthodox variety (Barth) smoked pipes, and conservatives (John Murray), smoked cigars. I’d heard a similar quip from another friend who attended Westminster around the same time to the effect that liberals smoked cigarettes, conservatives smoked pipes, and the real intellectuals smoked pipes. In a similar vein, the late Rev’d Dr. R.C. Sproul said of his days as a seminarian, “In those days everyone at Pittsburgh smoked. The conservatives smoked tobacco.”

That got me ruminating about my own relationship with tobacco. I was born to a couple of parents who both smoked cigarettes. Around the time that I was nine my mother gave them up and a year later, after the all-too-early death of one of his brothers my Dad did the same. When he would complain in the early stages of his withdrawal how much he wanted a cigarette, she would point out that she’d had to go through the same thing watching him contentedly puff away right in front of her. Although not the cause of her early death at seventy-one, there is no doubt cigarettes shortened her life.

Having two born-again ex-cigarette smokers as parents largely dissuaded me from smoking them myself. I tried them a time or two (and got caught once when my concealment wasn’t nearly as good as I thought), but really didn’t care for the taste of them. Although I the first several years of my life were spent in Western North Carolina when I was six-and-a-half we relocated to Horry County, South Carolina, where my father had grown up and where we had some fairly deep roots. While we lived in Myrtle Beach, the Horry County west of the Intercoastal Waterway was long tobacco-growing country (less so now with development), and the crop was big business for many years.

Sometime in college I began to smoke cigars. Being a young college student who didn’t know much about cigars I decided to forgo Swisher Sweets and chose instead to smoke the only slightly better Hav-a-Tampa (hey, they were cheap and as a college student I was on a limited budget). Once, while a cadet at Georgia Military College several of us were enjoying some cigars in a room in the old, unconditioned Vinson Hall; the prodigious amount of smoke wafting through the open window attracted the attention of some upperclassmen and we got smoked at least as thoroughly as the stogies did. My freshman roommate at GMC dipped tobacco at the time and one evening I bought some chewing tobacco to mock him during study hall; things went pretty well until I inadvertently swallowed it, making me sick as a dog (and, unfortunately, the Advanced ROTC cadets were departing for a Field Training Exercise immediately afterward, which made for a very unpleasant experience.

Over time I learned about better-quality cigars and, through the generosity of friends, had the occasional Cuban passed on to me. Since I commissioned in Armor, it wasn’t unusual to enjoy them at that time as they were a part of the culture. That has largely passed away as military smoking policy has gone from being able to smoke in ones own office to only being able to smoke in specially designated areas outside. When I was in the Armor Basic Course as a young lieutenant our class advisor noticed I was nodding off during some of the classroom instruction (I had at the time undiagnosed sleep apnea, but a lecture in the Army Supply System is a pretty good sedative even if that’s not the case). I took to chewing tobacco, spit cup at the ready, in class and only in class — my prior experience swallowing it assured that I was terrified I’d do so again and stayed alert, something that didn’t go unnoticed by the Captain.

During the time I was in seminary I decided to try a pipe after being around some pipe smokers. I did what probably most young men of that era did, I marched down to Kerr Drug (a now defunct pharmacy) and purchased a Dr. Grabow and a packet of Amphora. Over time I learned that Dr. Grabow pipes aren’t terribly good (some of the finishes they use don’t allow the briar to breathe) and I moved on to buying better pipes (if you know what to look for you can get a markedly better wall or basket pipe for not much more than a Grabow (truth be told, a Missouri Meerschaum corncob pipe offers a decent smoke at a minimal price and I often recommend people who want to try pipe smoking start with that because if you decide it isn’t for you you’re not out much money.

One other factor in my taking up pipes in seminary was the fact that, having taken up cigars in college, my seminary years were in the mid-1990s. It is generally acknowledged that the Rush Limbaugh nearly singlehandedly saved AM radio, but he also invigorated the cigar industry by talking about it on his show and the result was that prices went through the roof. The up-front expense in pipe smoking is the pipe itself (you can spend multiple thousands of dollars if you’re so inclined — I never have been) but after that the tobacco is fairly reasonable if bought in bulk. Over time I’ve gotten to where I smoke pipes much more than cigars (theology aside) and I’ve also been blessed to have a number of pipes passed on to me.

When I began smoking cigars and pipes tobacconists could be found in most cities of decent size and they were welcoming places where men (and ladies) could hang out, relax, and socialize. For a number of years in Charleston there was a great cigar bar called Club Habana that sadly is no more due to loosing their lease and being hindered by municipal regulation. There are still a few of the old style tobacconists left — three that immediately come to mind are The Tobacco Merchant in Columbia, South Carolina, Boda Pipes in Greenville, South Carolina, and McCranie’s in Charlotte, North Carolina.

If you have those kind of establishments in your community I’d encourage you to shop local and support them. JR Cigars got into the mail order business in a big way and the product descriptions in their catalogue written by Lew “The Jew” Rothman (the name by which he called himself) were entertaining on their own merit and I’ll usually stop at their outlets in North Carolina when I can, although I understand the massive retail sections selling all sorts of stuff are no more, sadly.

When I was younger I was a part of a Yahoo-email group called “Pipe Smokers Under Thirty” (that I was truly under thirty tells you how long ago that was). As a result of that I made the acquaintance of a fellow who was an undergraduate at Vanderbuilt University and started a business selling pipes and related items while still in school. That young man’s name was Sykes Wilford and that small business has grown into Smoking Pipes , from which I now order my pipe tobacco. In an odd twist of fate (a happy one), I co-officiated his wedding about fifteen years ago.

Also around fifteen years ago a friend and fellow priest introduced me to nasal snuff , something that’s a rarity in the U.S. I enjoy it for on the go, especially as the places where one can enjoy smoking tobacco in any form are becoming exceedingly rare.

Well those are my reminiscences of tobacco. I hope you’ve enjoyed reading them as much as I did remembering them. With that, I’ll offer a couple of caveats:

1. I’d not encourage anyone to use tobacco as it inevitably comes with some health risk. Cigars and pipes are less risky than cigarettes because one doesn’t inhale if one is smoking them properly, but there is some risk (there seems to be very little with nasal snuff). For adults who choose to do so, as I do, then I support their right to and I support the right of those who choose to abstain.

2. Particularly when one could more easily smoke in public places I would occasionally be asked about pipe or cigar smoking from someone who said that they wanted to give up cigarettes and were thinking about moving to one or both of those. They usually didn’t like my advice, which is that they shouldn’t touch pipes or cigars until they’ve been off of cigars for a year because they will instinctively still inhale, and often larger quantities of smoke. It’s not an easy substitute for cigarettes.