Call Me Ichabod

I don't remember when I first read or heard Washington Irving's 'Legend of Sleepy Hollow' but it is a story I have always enjoyed, especially in the fall. When we moved to Lee, MA, to start up the first Hydroknit(r) machine we moved at Labor Day and it was a glorious New England fall that year. We were living just a few miles from the Hudson valley where the story takes place, so of course I dragged out an American Lit book from college and re-read it that fall. The description of Ichabod Crane is one of the memorable parts of the story, and his nose is among his many exagerated features. It is described as 'a long snipe nose, so that it looked like a weather-cock, perched upon his spindle neck, to tell which way the wind blew. To see him striding along the profile of a hill on a windy day, with his clothes bagging and fluttering about him, one might have mistaken him for the genius of famine descending upon the earth, or some scarecrow eloped from the cornfield.' With my ongoing nose problems of this past week, I was of course reminded of him with such a famous nose!

Ichabod is a biblical name, and its meaning in the Bible contributes all the more to the description in Irving's story. In I Samuel 4, the ark of the covenant is taken from Israel by the Philistines, and the battle included the death of the high priest Eli's 2 sons as well as Eli's death from shock at the loss of the ark and his sons. His daughter-in-law then dies in childbirth upon hearing of her husband's death and the loss of the ark but before she dies she names the child Ichabod, which means 'the glory has departed' or 'no glory'. Ichabod Crane's nose was just one contributor to his appearance having 'no glory'!

I suspect my colleagues at work and my family who have seen me the past few days with various things stuffed in my nose, hanging out of my nose, and taped to my nose would certainly be thinking that 'Ichabod' sounds about right! I flatter myself , no doubt, to think that my nose was not all that weather-vane like otherwise. A little crooked maybe, but not quite up to Ichabod Crane's standards, at least until the last few days. The extra adornment the past few days has put me 'over the top', though.

Having gone 4 of the past 5 days to see the Ear/Nose/Throat doctor (we took Sunday off), and 2 more days before that getting urgent care to try to stop the nosebleeds, I have a newfound respect for the poor nose. My deviated (deviant?) septum is now a matter of more thoughtful consideration. And poor Ichabod Crane gets more sympathy from me than I ever gave him before.