I'm not usually much for poetry, but thanks to one of the Anastasia Krupnik books, I read Wordsworth's daffodil poem at a young age and still harbor a fondness for it. However, I've never considered
dressing up as a rodent and rapping a version of it. (Being from Squirrel Hill, I find this extra amusing--of course, our squirrels were the grey ones.)
4 comments:
Second try with this comment, so it'll be shorter ;-)
Are you from Squirrel Hill, Pittsburgh? I lived next door for a year while attending CMU. I went to a dentist's visit in Squirrel Hill after ~3 weeks spent entirely on campus at CMU. All the "regular" people (i.e., children and old folks) in Squirrel Hill freaked me out since I hadn't seen any for so long.
Phil--yes I am!!! Where were you living, and what were you doing at CMU?
Plus, my dad is a dentist in Squirrel Hill--do you remember the name or location of the person you saw? :)
Lordy be, your dad is a dentist in Squirrel Hill?!
I was a freshman at CMU (later transferred to Brown which suited me much more).
I can't remember the dentist's name, but I do remember him well for two reasons.
1. He had a cool practice of scratching the side of my face as a sensory distraction while he was injecting the novacaine. It really worked. I was doubly distracted by (a) the scratching and (b) the idea that there was a technique for distraction.
2. He made a memorable comment to me, saying something like, "You know, I have this feeling about you. You are going to do something very special [/ large?] one day [/ with your life]." Who knows - maybe he said that to lots of people? But it stuck with me for a while. When I was younger, I had an interest in notions of "big legacy living" and making a name for myself, preferably through something good. Twenty years later, I think that if anything, I avoid the idea of making a name for myself. But who knows.
It's possible that I have the dentist's name in my journal from 1985/1986. I'm pretty sure he was Jewish (was Squirrel Hill a Jewish community?). I also seem to recall that he was right on the "main drag" of whatever big commercial street goes through the neighborhood. I have the feeling that this dentist was ~50-55 when I saw him, but I'm not so good with those things. I'll try to remember to look!
Phil--that probably wasn't my dad--he's not even 55 yet and I'm pretty sure you've been out of college even longer than I have. :)
Squirrel Hill is a very Jewish community--there used to be several Jewish-targeted stores on Forbes and Murray (the main drags of Sq'ill), but now we're down to one kosher supermarket and I think two kosher restaurants. I'm trying to think of which dentists are over on that end of town, but it's been a while since I was over there.
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