Exhibit A
As years of smoking progressed I began to collect various pipes. Many of
my pipes are hand-carved and were as much sculpture as paraphernalia. Some
pipes were made for a particular purpose or occasion.
I had come into possession of a seventy pound block of Vermont
soapstone. Soapstone is a very easy material to carve, and it comes in a variety
of colors. Not to be confused with pipestone, which is red with a harder and more
granular than soapstone. Soapstone come in a range of colors from white to
greenish black. The Vermont stone is a darker almost black material, While it is
heavy it is very soft, and can be scratched with a thumbnail.
The original block of stone was about 42 inches by 24 inches by about 8
inches thick and I was hacking blocks off one end with a hacksaw. I had already
given away several ten and fifteen pound chunks to friends and artists. Now I was
down to making pipe blanks. Smaller blocks of stone that could be bored with a
bowl and a stem and shaped into a pleasing shape. Each block was about 6x2x2.
We had a collection of pipes after a while. As we smoked out of the bowls
each developed a personality and we chose names for some pipes. Each pipe
had a case to keep it in. Some were hand made leather pouches with antique
beads. Or a military surplus first aid kit that fits a bowl perfectly. We used a
couple of .50 ammo cans to keep it all in. Vacuum sealed, heavy construction,
able to have a lock fitted.
There was; ??Barling?, ??Zeus?, ??Gandalf?, the ??Pebble? pipe, ??Tigger?, and
more. Some of these pipes lived in the freezer. Occasionally you would freeze a
lip to the stem, but they melted off after a while. Each pipe had a different size
bowl and shape. We had antlers and carved granite. There were Alabaster
carvings and ceramic shapes. Each pipe had been added to the collection to fill a
particular need.
The ??Pebble? pipe was carved to resemble the rocks along a path we often
walked. If we were confronted by the authorities we could drop it on the ground
and was very difficult to see it among the other rocks.
??Gandalf? had a face carved in it after we had read the Hobbit series.
??Zeus? looked like a lightning bolt a Greek god would throw. ??Tigger? was striped
with a tiger carved into the side. Then there was ??Exhibit A?.
I had been hacking out these blocks while thinking about our collection.
And I was struck with a thought:? all these art objects? How would a policeman
look at this collection.?? And I realized each one of these pipes would be part of
the evidence against us in an arrest. Then I thought it would be funny to have a
pipe that was obviously just a drug instrument, an obvious ??Exhibit A?.
I took one of the blocks and drew a few lines on it to help line up the bowl
and stem bores. I took the 1? bit and put a piece of tape at the 1? deep mark.
Then I bored a 1? across 1? deep hole on one end of the top surface. Then I ran a
stem bit from the far end to the bottom edge of the bowl. With a file and some fine
sandpaper I shaped the end down to a half inch cylinder, then I made all the
surfaces flat and smooth. When it was polished it was almost a perfect black.
After I had all the polish done I etched into the side in 1? tall letters ??Exhibit A?
Then I filled in the letters with yellow paint..
Now I had this palm sized black pipe with a huge bowl and lettered across
the side was ??Exhibit A?. The first time I passed it around people were stunned,
then stoned. The damn thing took help three or four grams of weed, with three or
four people smoking it took fifteen minutes to finish off. It was great. Fresh from
the freezer it held a chill for almost ten minutes. And of course people couldn??t
help but laughing at the name of this particular implement ??Exhibit A?.
doctor G Reviewed by doctor G on . Doctor G: The pipe collection Exhibit A As years of smoking progressed I began to collect various pipes. Many of my pipes are hand-carved and were as much sculpture as paraphernalia. Some pipes were made for a particular purpose or occasion. I had come into possession of a seventy pound block of Vermont soapstone. Soapstone is a very easy material to carve, and it comes in a variety of colors. Not to be confused with pipestone, which is red with a harder and more granular than soapstone. Soapstone come in a range Rating: 5