The Pope's nose on Pope's Hill

What do you call the butt end of roasted chicken? If you are Catholic you call it the tail, that bit of savory, skin-encased fat that held the rooster's feathers while he was alive. It was the part that kept eggs from rolling out of the nest from under the mother hen's hindquarters. If you are an Anabaptist, Mennonite, Jehovah's Witness or Puritan, though, you call this protuberance off the butt end of a chicken carcass the Pope's nose.

What do you call the most picturesque, hillside neighborhood in Dorchester, Boston's biggest and most beautiful neighborhood? The people who live there call it a good place to raise a family. They call it a good place to rest their heads at night, a peaceable place, a place where children play in the streets and the parks and their parents don't worry what they are up to. People who live here call it the best part of Boston.

If you live on Beacon Hill, you call this hill Pope's Hill and you wrinkle your nose and furrow your brow when you say it. You can pinch your nostrils when you do it. "Pope's Hill," the dowagers say, "I'd rather eat the Pope's nose than go there." The money managers who reside in waterfront condominiums around Fort Point Channel have a similar opinion. I was at Aqua the other night, excusing my departure by saying I was making a Silver Line connection to take the Red Line to Field's Corner to visit a sick friend off King Square. A boozy barfly sporting suspenders and spats shouted for all to hear, "The unwashed proletariat is in the house." Nice move wise guy. I don't know what they call a horse's tail meat in France but you sure looked like the Pope's nose after that.