Do you celebrate International Pipe Smoking Day?

Started in 2008 by a European Internet group called Smokers Forums, International Pipe Smoking Day (or IPSD) is an opportunity to celebrate pipe smoking, friendship, and the inter-generational bonds that make this hobby so meaningful. It's comforting to know that people around the world are lighting up together on the same day to smoke, relax, and reflect.

It might surprise you to know that pipe smoking is still a thriving hobby. But pipe smokers are out there. In fact, there are more pipe enthusiast groups on Facebook than I can keep up with. (And to be honest they're the main reason I keep up a presence over there.)

Here's a video of pipe smokers explaining how they came to smoke a pipe, and what it means to them.

Here's my club, the Sherlock Holmes Pipe Club of Boston making their annual pilgrimage to the Old Firehouse Smoke Shop in Fall River, Massachusetts, in 2016. As you can see, there was a tremendous turn-out on that day. Everyone learned a lot and got to enjoy the ambiance of a fabulous, true old-school tobacconist.

And yes, smoke-shops are one of the few places left in the country where we're still allowed to smoke in public. Let's hear it for our American freedoms!

Tomorrow we hope to have just as great a turnout.

So, if IPSD is February 20, and has been for ten years now, why are we celebrating a day early?

Well, Monday is Presidents' Day here in the USA. It's the holiday where we celebrate George Washington's birthday by promoting sales at car dealerships and furniture warehouses while shutting down all banks and government offices.

The off-shoot? Lots of the SHPC members have the day off.

A New Chapter: Fall River

It should be a momentous day. After long wrangling and negotiation, and lots of excitement, the Fall River chapter of the Sherlock Holmes Pipe Club is to be officially founded tomorrow. There's fancy certificates to be signed by newly anointed club officers and everything. Our club has a long history. I joined in 1998, but it founded many, many years before that. It's really exciting to see the first chapter getting started in a neighboring city.

Plus, we're having lunch.

If you're in this region of New England, we'd love to have you!

So if you smoke a pipe -

Hell, if you smoke cigars, cigarettes, or even weed, spare a thought for us when you light up tomorrow. And spare a bigger thought for the pipe smoking community at large on Tuesday, and bask in the global camaraderie of the global brotherhood (and sisterhood) of the briar!

What will you be smoking on Tuesday?