Wednesday, June 25, 2008




When I lived in Lubbock, Texas in the early 80s, I would pass a strange looking man on my way to Texas Tech. He was short, maybe about five feet two and had the sun battened complexion of a farmer, but what made him stand out was that he looked like Alfred E,
Neuman, the mascot of Mad. He would be waiting on Ninth Street and when he saw me he’d break into a big goofy grin and gallop up to me like a horse, breaking into conversation. I knew he wasn’t quite right, as we say in Texas, but he seemed friendly. He always wanted me to “sign his book” and seemed to have a hard time understanding that I needed to get to class.

I didn’t know it at the time, but he was a casebook example of Williams Syndrome:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Williams_syndrome Williams Syndrome gives you great empathy and hyper-sociability. Or in other words it fills you with a major desire to fit in. You want to make contact at any cost. Folks with Williams Syndrome usually have IQs in the 60s, but have a have a large vocabulary and an eloquence that belies their shortcomings. They look like Alfred E. Neuman, but are described as “elfin.” They tend to have perfect pitch.

Dr. J. C. P. Williams discovered the disorder in 1961. He worked in New Zealand and the large number of short people in his cardiac clinic with a similar suite of abilities and weaknesses, made him wonder if there was a syndrome involved. Mayo clinic offered him a job twice in the Sixties, but he simply failed to show up each time. Finally at the end of the decade he moved to swinging London to work, but disappeared from the world we know on November 22, 1968e.v. All that seems to be left of him was unclaimed suitcase in Kings Cross Station . Now this is an interesting place for a doctor to disappear, a small pox nd measles ce stood here, and before that Queen Boudica fought her last battle. Indeed her ghost regularly haunts the station http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boudica The mystical doors of Britain were open that day – it was the day the Beatles released the White Album and Yoko Ono and John Lennon’s major enchantment began working on the world http://users.tinyonline.co.uk/ian.simpson/ian.simpson/rev%209%20minutes.htm
But what was opened that Dr, J.C.P. Williams left the world and where was he needed?

The answer is that the door was opened to the Wizarding World. The three-year-old Joanne Rowling was in Kings Cross Station that day. Witnesses say that the doctor may have even spoken to her. Two years later she began writing a story about a rabbit (names Rabbit), who gets the measles and is visited by a giant bee, named Miss Bee. Notice how measles (one of the diseases of the hospital) and a rabbit (the sacred animal that Boudica gave to the goddess Andraste http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andraste Can Miss Bee also point to the Beatles?

Why did Dr. J.C.P. Williams refuse the prestigious Mayo Clinic not once, but twice? Rumor in the Wizarding World points to a generous grant from St. Mungo’s Hospital
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Places_in_Harry_Potter#St_Mungo.27s who were beginning the House Elf Genome Project.

1 comment:

Nancy said...

I love your writing. Stumbled upon it as I was trying to locate someone with WS from Texas. I certainly hope you were kind to that man, but I have the feeling that you were. People with WS are very sensitive and loving, although they can take up quite a bit of your time and don't interpret social cues like most of us do.

As for what happened to Dr. Williams, I fantasize about different scenarios from time to time myself. But I like your explanation quite a lot. :) I am now quite fond of wizards, elves, and the likes myself. Dr. Williams was probably more than half out of his tree, but I am grateful for the diagnosis that answered our family's questions about our baby.

Keep writing and thank you!