Totally Texas -- A show of hands

Adrian E. Flatt, M.D. Hand Collection

Truett Hospital, Baylor University Medical Center, Dallas

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The twins had just watched The Princess Bride.  Little boys that they are, their favorite character was Fezzik the giant, played by Andre Roussimoff, also known as Andre the Giant.  Just the excuse their mom needed to take them to the Adrian E. Flatt, M.D., Hand Collection.  Dr. Flatt, a hand surgeon, began casting and bronze-coating hands of famous people as a hobby in 1962.  The casts housed at Baylor University Medical Center at Dallas include, of course, those of Roussimoff.

The casts from the seven foot, four-inch tall, five hundred pound Roussimoff dwarf those of fellow wrestler Fritz Von Erich, displayed side by side.  They are so large that the shyer twin refused to be lifted to the upper shelf of the exhibit for a closer look.  A giant on the TV screen he could accept.  A giant in real life – that’s something else.  All the casts are displayed with photographs of the people who volunteered their hands for the program.  In his photograph, Roussimoff appears disarmingly shy, appropriate for a man who suffered since childhood from the hormone disorder acromegaly – gigantism -- that probably contributed to his death from congestive heart failure at age 46.

The first hands Dr. Flatt cast were those of fellow hand surgeons to prove there are no “typical surgeons’ hands.”  He went on to casts of athletes ranging from the small but muscular hands of jockey Willie Shoemaker and gymnast Cathy Rigby’s elfin fingers through the typically large hands of Troy Aikman, Wilt Chamberlain, and Mike Modano.  None of them, however, of a size to rival Roussimoff’s.  The exhibit also includes casts of entertainers, artists, astronauts, scientists, U.S. Presidents, and others.

Like Roussimoff’s, all of the casts are expressive and revealing.  Dr. Flatt’s technique, described in the exhibit, captures fine details of each hand, even fingerprints, arthritic joints and broken fingernails.  The twins’ also appreciated the casts of Walt Disney and Theodor Geisel, creator of Dr. Seuss, that showed them the human side of artists whose work they love.

The exhibit is in the Truett Hospital of the medical center at

3500 Gaston Avenue in Dallas.  It’s free and open 24 hours, just like the hospital.

Paging Dr. Seuss

Joe from the Writers Garret asked for readers, as in people willing to read their own writing OUT LOUD in front of the crowd of Saturday window shoppers at a local upscale mall.  No, don't let me go all weaselly about this -- it wasn't any old shopping mall.  It was NorthPark Center in Dallas, Texas.  True confession:  I love NorthPark.  It may be the only shopping mall that houses a collection of stupendous art, right there by the food court, the escalators, everywhere.  It has an indoor duck pond and a children's library.  My family hangs out there when the weather won't let the kids play outside.  It's way, way cooler than your usual shopping venue.  So of course I told Joe I'd read.  I begged him to let me read.  He said yes.  Then I remembered that reading my own words in public makes me want to throw up.

The Garret, a gathering place in East Dallas that offers writing classes and workshops, was one of dozens of  organizations invited to an arts fair at NorthPark that day.  Our booth was next to those for book reviewers and oral storytellers.  Costumed actors from the local Shakespearean theater strolled the halls, with more actors dressed as characters from the books of beloved children's author Dr. Seuss.  You know him, the cat  from Whoville who stole Christmas.  The stage area where those of us who accepted the challenge of Garret writer in residence Joe Milazzo would read was between a Starbucks and the restrooms at that end of the mall.  It was busy with a capital biz.

Fellow writer Gigi asked me to videotape her reading.  Maybe she just took pity on me looking greenish, hoping to distract me from the awful moment when I would look at the paper in my trembling hand and realize the words printed on it made no sense whatsoever.  I concentrated on keeping her in the viewfinder, forgetting that photography rule about keeping track of the background so your subject doesn't end up with telephone poles appearing to sprout from her head or any such nonsense.  She read, I read, others read.  At least our lips moved.  The noise of the crowd overwhelmed the PA system, the shoppers not even slowing to gawk.  Joe said it was good experience, we'd be better for it the next time.

I asked Gigi later whether the video helped her critique her performance.  She said yes.  Except that when she viewed it she couldn't take her eyes off the guy with the Cat in the Hat costume posing behind her.  Dr. Seuss would have had a moral for that.