I had the best of intentions for this editorial. I had planned to spend International Pipe Smoking Day driving the streets and byways of my home county pursuing a journalistic quest—a search for pipe smokers in the wild. I had a route all planned, including mall parking lots, smoking areas just outside the jurisdictions of […]
I’ve had weeks to think about how to approach this commentary, and I still hardly know what to say. I also realize a lot of you hardly know what to expect. For two decades, Chuck Stanion’s incomparable editorials filled this space, and his wisdom poured unsparingly into every page of this magazine. How can I […]
by Chuck Stanion Fire, of course, is the foundation of our pipe smoking pastime. Without fire, there would be no plumes of fragrant smoke. Our tobaccos need ignition, and we all have our own ways, but how did fire come about? How did we harness and tame it to our whims? Was it gods, or […]
by Chuck Stanion With the election behind us and the holiday season before us, it’s a great time to be a pipe smoker—for the stress relief, don’t you know. The most detailed studies indicate that pipe smokers live as long as or longer than nonsmokers, and many have hypothesized that this is because pipe smoking […]
by Chuck Stanion It was 1968 and our little farming village was in the middle of nowhere. That spring, a fellow named Zacharias Blump emerged from the forest and found his way to the village’s one-room church, where he raised an alarm. We saw him only every six months or so when he materialized to […]
by Chuck Stanion I’m often asked, “Chuck, you’re famous for knowing everything there is to know about pipes—how do you do it?” Sadly, it’s asked only by myself in the bathroom mirror when I’m scouring barbecue sauce or Cheez Whiz out of my beard, but that won’t stop me from answering it here. The truth […]
For this, our 20th anniversary issue, we return this page to Dayton H. Matlick, founder and owner of P&T magazine, who wrote the editorials during the first years of publication. When I was 9 years old, my family moved from the city life in Louisville, Kentucky, to a Burley tobacco and beef farm in surrounding […]
Although he kept 10 dogs (all named Toby), my grandfather saw no reason for more than one pipe—his metal Falcon was indestructible. It was fine after he fell off the roof of his barn with it, and from a tree, and a telephone pole, and over a waterfall when he tried to retrieve his hat […]
I get along fine with my neighbors, except for Mrs. Gulper, who looks like an emaciated prairie dog in pearls. Mrs. Gulper doesn’t like the casual way I tend our yard, and she hates it when I sit out there with a pipe. She knocks on my door every few months to recommend various yard […]
I’m ambivalent about the value of my brain. Sometimes I think it’s working pretty well, but then it will do something stupid and alter my opinion. Mostly it stumbles along within acceptable parameters, but sometimes it tortures me for its own amusement—like when it tells me that the cheese decomposing in the back of the […]
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