I heard about this poem, on the way into work. One nice thing about my extra commute is that I have more time to listen to things. I think that it would drive me crazy, just like it has some of fellow commuters, if I listened to the radio for all of this extra mileage. Even NPR would drive me nuts, what with its incessant reporting on the Republican presidential campaign. I listen to podcasts instead. I’m currently well into The Reconstruction, as part of Yale professor, David Blight’s 20+ hour Civil War lectures. (No, “Daves” was not part of this wide ranging lecture series.) It is somehow comforting, hearing about the life and death struggles of people who have been dead for over a hundred years. It makes wading interminably through traffic seem so ephemeral. You can read the poem, “Too Many Daves” by Theodor Geisel (also-known-as Dr. Seuss), at The Poetry Foundation, or you can watch this YouTube recitation. The little girl voicing it, sounds irresistibly cute:

“Too Many Daves” is one of four stories in the Dr. Seuss collection ,”The Sneetches and Other Stories”. “Daves” revolves around poor Mrs. McCave, who has the habit of naming her 23 sons, Dave. This makes her a productive, if not particularly bright woman. Anne is no Mrs. McCave, but she has raised two sons, one of them named Dave. I wager though that there is one page that Anne would like to take from Mrs. McCave, when she calls, “All twenty-three Daves of hers come on the run!” Maybe it is a herd thing, because it doesn’t seem to work for one. 😉