Articles by Chuck Stanion | Smokingpipes Daily Reader

The History of Pipe Cleaners

February 21, 2025 by Chuck Stanion

8 Comments

If you've ever run out of pipe cleaners, you already appreciate their essential nature. For most of us, every smoke requires at least a couple, and we tend to maintain a good supply, especially when we've experienced the extraordinary anguish of their absence. Whether clearing a blocked ... Read More

The Pipe Community Grieves Vernon Vig

February 19, 2025 by Chuck Stanion

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There are a lot of great pipes out there," commented Vernon Vig a few months ago. We had been chatting about his random pipe-smoking episode with Walter Cronkite in the '70s in New York City, but the conversation had drifted to the greater world of pipes, as it often did with Vernon. "A lot of great people are waiting to connect with them and each other. Pipe clubs and shows bring ... Read More

Adventurer and Pipe Smoker John Fairfax

February 7, 2025 by Chuck Stanion

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John Fairfax was the first to traverse an ocean alone by rowboat. It was the Atlantic, and two years later, in 1971, he and his partner, Sylvia Cook, were the first to row across the Pacific. The pipe-smoking adventurer had learned his navigation skills as a pirate and as captain of a vessel smuggling whisky, guns, and cigarettes across the globe. He was familiar with the sea and its creatures. When he was attacked ... Read More

The Legend of Hugh Glass: Pipe-Smoking Frontiersman

January 24, 2025 by Chuck Stanion

11 Comments

Geniuses like Einstein, Hubble, Jung, Tolkien, Sartre, and others have contributed to a stereotype of pipe smokers as intellectual and contemplative personalities, puffing gently, developing theories, and achieving art that changes the world. Yet pipe ... Read More

The Supreme Balance of Small Batch: Firebird Flake

January 3, 2025 by Chuck Stanion

35 Comments

Appropriate for the advent of a new calendar year, Firebird Flake is ready for its introduction to the world. The Firebird of legend symbolizes beauty, rebirth, and renewal. It is a magical being with luminescent or fiery wings whose capture may be rewarded with wishes or good fortune. ... Read More

John Milton: Pipe Smoker

December 27, 2024 by Chuck Stanion

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If you've used the word "pandemonium," perhaps when your life has been upended by craziness or absurdity, you have John Milton to thank — not for the craziness, but for the word to describe it, which he invented. It's from his epic poem, Paradise Lost (1667), and was "the high capital of Satan and all his peers," and the dwelling place of all demons. Its meaning has shifted in modern times, but Milton conceived it. ... Read More

The Christmas Chimney Fire

December 20, 2024 by Chuck Stanion

28 Comments

One Christmas Eve in the '60s, very late in the evening, as my brothers, sister, and I tried to sleep through the anticipation of Santa's arrival, my dad's fire monitor went off. It was a loud, screeching thing that we all hated because it squawked and chirped through loud static every night and rarely announced anything exciting. Dad was a volunteer firefighter for our small village ... Read More

Stocking Stuffers for Pipe Smokers

December 13, 2024 by Chuck Stanion

2 Comments

It doesn't take an artisan pipe, an S.T. Dupont lighter, or a case of rare tobacco to delight a pipe smoker on Christmas morning. Many little things appropriate for stocking stuffers are also necessary, and pipe enthusiasts appreciate and depend on them. They're items that are often overlooked and, therefore, doubly treasured. Any pipe smoker can tell you how inconvenient it is to run out of pipe cleaners ... Read More

My Cousin Mark Twain: A Trove of Twain Pipe-Smoking Anecdotes

November 29, 2024 by Chuck Stanion

12 Comments

November 30th is Mark Twain's birthday, a day worthy of holiday status. He's considered the father of American literature, after all, and certainly the father of American humor, and therefore his birth is at least as deserving of national observance as Groundhog Day. ... Read More

Micah Cryder: Yeti Pipes

November 15, 2024 by Chuck Stanion

4 Comments

Micah Cryder started making pipes even before he had an interest in smoking them.

In late 2011, when he was 17, Micah's brother decided to make a Christmas pipe for their father, and Micah volunteered to help. They used the equipment in their high school shop class. Their teacher had no objections as long as they worked on the project ... Read More

Chuck Stanion