2059. DR. DOOLITTLE AND MR. WEDGEWORTH

DR. DOOLITTLE AND
MR. WEDGEWORTH
He entered the room wearing plastic rain boots
and a safari hat - green khaki pants and a face
fell of glee. Saying 'I love the rain, always!' he
moved along. I liked his manner, but couldn't
place the song. At the other end of the room, a
dour Mr. Wedgeworth sat.
-
There are always funny things to remember -
how misinterpretations color the memory, how
information gets misconstrued. Like Thoreau
saying 'know your own bone' in his nineteenth
century manner, meaning - as Anne Truitt put it -
a writer should 'force himself to work steadfastly
along the nerve of one's most intimate sensitivity' -
now being pointed to as a secret masturbator,
these things are usually stupid and dumb.
-
It meant more about 'write what you know' than
anything else. The varied 'Self' we each are.
'Know your own bone, gnaw at it, bury it,
unearth it, and gnaw at it still.' What the hell,
I always understood.
-
Now Dr. Doolittle and Mr. Wedgeworth, I notice,
are sitting together. The newspaper between them
carries a dense crossword puzzle they seem to
love doing - together, in tandem, as one.
The usual harmonies of unity and oneness -
know your own scene, do what you mean.
It can't be more simple than that.