Revisiting Dr. Seuss
Bill Rea

Okay! I admit it! I'm weak!

I thought I would be able to resist the temptation, but I came up short, again.

My nostalgic instincts got the better of me, and I read some Dr. Seuss.

Granted, there are a lot of worse things I could have done, but succumbing to the temptation of a children's book is pretty bad.

I guess a bit of explanation is in order.

My wife and I have no children, but we do have a niece and nephew (the children of Beth's brother and his wife) who we like to spoil, especially at Christmas.

One Saturday in December, the pair of us were roaming through one of the area malls and we stopped in a book store. We were actually looking for a present for someone else on our "to buy for" list when I came upon this collection of Dr. Seuss stories; 13 of them to be exact. Now our nephew is only four and his sister is even younger. But they are smart kids (an obvious sign that they take after their uncle) and they will be coming into reading at some point soon. Besides, they have a mom and dad who could read to them, not to mention a couple of grandmothers or even an aunt or uncle who might be pressed into such service. The idea seemed too good to pass up, so we got the book as a present for the both of them.

I should also add that we made the decision after I had verified that the collection contained And To Think that I Saw It on Mulberry Street. Who needs a Cat in the Hat or a Grinch (both were included as well). They were nothing without Marco on Mulberry Street.

Now for those of you who might not be familiar with Dr. Seuss, he wrote a lot of delightful classics for children, all (or at all that I read as a kid) set in rhyme. And I did read a lot of his stuff when I was little and just discovering reading (before I discovered MAD magazine).

So I naturally thought this was an appropriate thing to get two people who would soon be young readers in training.

What I hadn't counted on was how hard it would be for me to resist digging the book out of the bag. Beth, not realizing my interest, hadn't thought to hide the bag the book was in. Good thing too, because had she done so, I probably would have ripped the house apart looking for it.

I was able to resist for a couple of days, then finally broke down and dug out the book, carefully timing it for when Beth was elsewhere.

Thus, for the first time in more than 40 years, I read And To Think that I Saw It on Mulberry Street.

That's not such a bad thing, really. I recall the time when I took the book out of the library and brought it home. My father found out I had, and showed an awful lot less restraint than I had. I later learned he had read the book as a kid.

It was in our house for maybe 15 minutes before Dad had seized it and was reading it aloud.

My late father was a man of many talents, and the ability to read poetry with feeling and inflection was certainly very high on that list.

So while I probably should have been stronger and left the reading about Marco to the younger generation, I at least know that I'm not the only sucker for a good story.

It would be nice if I could say that I left the book completely alone after that break down. But that would not be true. And as we all know, I'm not one for "telling such outlandish tales."

I cracked the book again, the Saturday before Christmas.

If it was my father who served as the justification for my first transgression, it was the Prime Minister of Canada who can take the bow for the second - I'm not "turning minnows into whales" - honest.

I was driving home from work that Saturday evening, listening to the PM give one of those customary interviews just before everyone in the media (except me) is supposed to take time off for the holidays. Now as many of you might know, I am no great fan of Stephen Harper, but the interview was coming off the speakers, and my journalistic interest got the better of my desire to channel hop in search of music.

One of the probing questions he was asked was to name his favourite book. He responded he had once been on a panel with other politicos, and they had all been asked to name the book that most helped to shape their political philosophy. A number of works from the pens of such people as Locke or Machiavelli were named by some, but Harper said when it came his turn, he said Yertle The Turtle, by none other than Dr. Seuss.

Now tell me that hasn't stirred your old curiosity.

I had never read Yertle, but I had heard of him. I was in various choirs in high school, and at the annual Music Night, held at the end of the school year, it was customary for the various performing groups to pass the hat and buy gifts for the teacher who had tolerated so much from us. I was in the Men's Choir my last year (known as Grade 13 in those days), and somehow got the job of collecting and buying the gift for our teacher. A friend from those days, named Robert, agreed to accompany me on the shopping trip, ready with ideas, and failing that, moral support. What we ended up with were a couple of little things, which combined made a nice little package for this teacher (actually, I am in more contact with her these days that with anyone else from my high school experience). Robert and I were just about ready to declare the shopping expedition over when he spotted a display of records, meaning LPs (this was still the 1970s). One of the records was a soundtrack of Dr. Seuss's Yertle The Turtle.

For Robert, it was love at first sight.

"We've got to get that!" he said gleefully.

"Yertle The Turtle?" I replied incredulously.

"We've got to get that!" Robert repeated.

"Yertle The Turtle?" I repeated.

"We've got to get that!" Robert said again.

"Yertle The Turtle?" I said again, emphasizing each and every individual syllable.

The upshot was we got it, and it was added to the package the two of us presented to our teacher in one of the very few successful efforts I have ever made at impromptu public speaking in front several hundred people. But the truth is if I knew then what I know now, I would have shown Robert a lot more resistance.

Yertle was one of the stories included in the book Beth and I bought, and I read it as soon as I got home that night, after hearing the PM's endorsement. It turns out it was indeed a sort of political story. Yertle was not a nice turtle, and unlike the Grinch, who ended up being converted, Yertle got taken down. It also seems the inspiration for the character of Yertle was Hitler, and the story dealt with rulers who base their power on their ability to walk all over those who are beneath them; that is until someone defies them. Then they fall.

So the story, with its particular morals, isn't really a bad one to be political inspiration. So good on Harper for seeing it that way.

But I have to wonder if someone like Garth Turner would agree with my assessment.