Doc Linger
NaPoWriMo 12 April: Write a … “poem that recounts a memory of a beloved relative, and something they did that echoes through your thoughts today.”
This being a draft, maybe you can help me refine it. Or not. I’m already grateful you’re here reading my poetry. Hopefully, you read the poem before the story behind it below. My question for you, if you feel like being questioned, is: how much of the story did you get from the poem?
Doc Linger, by Elizabeth Boquet
1916. The people of Lost Creek know what’s what,
since they’ve raised and praised R Basil since birth.
But folks between Bridgeport and Clarksburg don’t,
and there’s talk of a new doctor making the rounds.
Seems he’ll treat the coal miners for free, if need be,
or take eggs, preserves, potatoes, or what-have-you.
Just yesterday, in Clarksburg, Avis reached for the door
of Goff’s Department Store and out burst said new
buck-of-a-doctor who vaulted onto his Morgan’s saddle,
and galloped off hell-for-leather toward Bridgeport.
Now, everyone in town is waiting for news on just what
could have been so serious, so urgent, for such a rush.
Days with no news of anybody dying or suffering out
that-a-way has some saying that, if things stay so,
then R must be pretty good—that his practice must be
the place to go—and so they went for 60 years (almost.)
Backstory
My maternal grandfather, Dr. R Basil Linger, was born 10 May 1890 in Lost Creek, West Virginia, and died 20 September 1980 in Clarksburg, West Virginia. Yup. You read that right—no period after what looks like an initial. His first name, even on his birth certificate, was a single letter “R,” and nobody ever claimed to know, for sure, what it might stand for (if anything).
Anyway, as a young doctor, legend has it that this is how he drummed up business: by jumping on his horse and rushing out of town (Clarksburg, WVA) in the direction of Bridgeport. Nobody heard of anyone dying or suffering needlessly out that way, so they began to see him.
BTW, the “Morgan” referred to was his horse—not a car. But you knew that, right?