Snapshots of a Modest Life

A Little Metal Sink To Spit In

I found myself wandering through the stacks in Strozier Library today. I had to figure out who wrote the article I referenced for an essay I wrote earlier in the semester, and rewrote for our last assignment before finals week. I was in a hurry, so I asked directions from the man at the information counter. He was a veteran at the job, and new exactly where the periodicals section was. I gave him the call number and he directed me right to it. I still had to wander through the stacks a little though.

So I got up to the second floor and made a left and then a right into the periodicals section. Its amazing. Row after row of books filled with bound periodicals published ages ago. Walking past one stack, I saw the Saturday Evening Post. The clock was the only thing that prevented me from stopping and thumbing through the thick books. Images of famous Norman Rockwells popped into my head; a family at Thanksgiving Dinner, the one of the kid in the doctor's office. I want to say there was a painting of a kid in the dentist's office, but I'm not sure. Anyway, it reminded me of the Norman Rockwell I used to look at it when I was little and someone in my family had to go see Dr. Brockmeier. That's where I was the day the Pulaski County Courthouse burned down in the early 1990s, sitting in Dr. Brockmeier's waiting room looking at a copy of that Norman Rockwell. Funny the things you remember.

Dr. Brockmeier had an old style dentist office, one where there was a bowl to spit in next to the chair. No suction tube things in that place. I want to say the tile was green or maybe aqua, but that might just be me imagining things. I never got to sit in the chair, although I always wanted to. I liked the kid in the Norman Rockwell, I guess I wanted to be like him a little. I had perfect teeth when I was little, so I never got to sit in that chair and spit in the little metal sink. It looked so complicated, so high tech. Before we moved, Dr. Brockmeier retired. I think he had worked on my dad's teeth when he was a kid, so it was probably about time. I was sad though, when we went to the dentist after that. His office was new, and actually high tech, and there wasn't a little metal sink to spit in.