By Dennis Holt
Brooklyn Daily Eagle
BROOKLYN — Even in this so-called “paperless society,” we tend to get a lot of mail at our house, some of it mysterious. For example, my wife got suspicious the day I received an invitation to subscribe to Playboy.
Thinking myself immune, I was nonetheless taken back by an invitation we received recently which reads as follows:
“The Department of Housing Preservation and Development, in cooperation with City Council members Diana Reyna and Gale Brewer, cordially invites you to an important seminar on bedbugs.”
Bedbugs.
Apparently, the seminar will teach us about bedbugs, how to recognize them, prevent an infestation, and eliminate them from the home.
This particular event, to be held on March 12, is in Brooklyn, but there will be other such meetings in every borough. I remember last year that there seemed to be an emergence of bedbugs in various places in the city, prompting one newspaper to print a large photo of one. I admit, I didn’t recognize it.
It should come as no startling admission that I haven’t thought about bedbugs for a very long time. I remember when I was a kid hearing the evening caveat about having a good night and “don’t let the bedbugs bite.”
I never quite knew what this meant and for the longest time I thought mosquitoes were bedbugs, once, to the great amusement of my parents, commenting on flying and buzzing bedbugs.
During the war years, I spent summers with my grandparents in Kansas because Chicago might be a target for German bombers, and no one would drop any bombs in Kansas.
I remember once mentioning bedbugs for some reason and my grandmother drew herself up to her full 5 feet, 4 inches and proclaimed, “You’ll never find bedbugs in my house, young man.” I believe that was the last time I ever talked about bedbugs.
It might be considered ridiculous, but I have been pondering this attention being paid by the city on bedbugs ... not to giggle at the thought ... but to sort of admire that the arcane subject should reach the level of spending city resources.
Here, the mayor has launched an enormous undertaking to think about planning for the year 2030 with the staggering prediction that we will have one million more residents. And plans are for planting thousands of trees, reducing pollution, building more schools, getting cars off our streets, being 10 minutes from a playground or a park — an enormous number of things to do. And we have the time to think of bedbugs.
One could say, “Only in New York,” and that’s probably true. One can’t suspect that such a gathering would be held in Olathe, Kan., for example.
This could lead some cynics to complain that with all the “real” problems in New York, why spend time on a rather piddling subject? But most of the “real” problems are understood; it’s the solutions that seem to escape us.
For example, look how long it has taken this city to figure out how to create public toilets in places where crowds gather — a “problem” that hasn’t seemed to perplex other major cities — and we still don’t seem to have hit on a logical answer.
So maybe we should commit resources to something we might be able to master, like the forlorn bedbug, and let the think tanks concentrate on such things as improving commuter ferry service.
© Brooklyn Daily Eagle 2008
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