Post
by durangopipe » Thu Dec 06, 2018 5:58 pm
Well ...
This has turned into more of a project than I feared.
Seems a "fishtail" is as hard to cleanly separate from other stems as it is to know what the meaning of "is" is.
I went through my racks and cabinet (always looking for a pretext to do just that) and clearly found a few that were not only flared at the end, but had concave buttons - to some degree. They include a lovely group 3 Dunhill Apple, a 3-piece Comoy's Billiard, a Savinelli Punto Oro Bing's Favorite and the recently restored Erikson freehand.
My two Churchwardens could not be called anything but fishtails. They had, by far, the most pronounced flare. But no concavity.
Only 3 of my several pipes that Peterson calls fishtails had a stem even beginning to resemble an actual fishtail, and even two of those barely made the cut.
Then, there were ten or so more I'd be willing to call fishtails, all without any concavity and greatly varying in amount of flare. Some would say, yes, fishtail. Others, probably not.
Why is it that any question regarding the minutiae of pipedom quickly becomes a metaphor for the deeper questions of life itself? Why does so much seem to become a matter of through a glass darkly?
This fishtail exercise reminds me of a chapel message I listened to 39 years ago. The professor delivering the message was a thoughtful and profoundly scholarly Christian gentleman, Dr. Tamashiro. After a lot of somewhat dry if very meaningful and thought provoking content, sprinkled here and there with an occasional joke (one I well remember about a sacred cow in the living room of his parents' home munching on their hippie son's long hair as he napped on the couch during a visit home from college), he ended the message by saying, "When I look at human behavior I very clearly see much black. I very clearly see much white. But I'm afraid there is far too much gray that I see for me to be comfortable making a judgment."
Then we prayed.
When I look at my pipes, I see a great variety of stems and variously shaped buttons and bits. I see a lot of fishtails. I see a lot that are not fishtails. But I'm afraid there are far too many I cannot categorize so simply for me to be comfortable. And a few, as well, that appear to have been munched on by a sacred cow.
Photos to follow. (This may take a few days.)
Last edited by
durangopipe on Thu Dec 06, 2018 6:31 pm, edited 3 times in total.
. . . be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God in Christ forgave you. Ephesians 4:32 (NKJV)
The most improper job of any man, even saints, is bossing other men. Not one in a million is fit for it, and least of all those who seek the opportunity.. J.R.R. Tolkien
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