Local Man's Goo-Goo Eyes at Local Baby "Go On Too Long"by Katherine Mills
Pediatrician Steven Hershwin had just boarded the local 167 en route to his office when local baby Thomas "Tommy" Winston, Jr. began crying, the frequent result of the infant's painful teething. In an attempt to sooth the child's tears, Hershwin leaned across the aisle and began making faces at the child. Then things turned sour.
Says Hershwin, "I figure, hey, I'm a pediatrician for God's sake, why not try my hand at calming the little guy down? I pulled out all my classics, from the Goo-Goo eyes to the silly clown face, but nothing would work. The more he kept crying, the more I wanted to get him to stop."
But in his noble rage, Hershwin neglected to realize that there can be too much of a good thing, and young Tommy Winston had had his fill.
Says mother of the child Marsha Sayles-Winston, "Tommy cries a lot. All babies cry a lot, no big news there. I had it under control when Mister Hero decides he's going to correct my horrible parenting. He starts making these..." Ms. Winston paused and searched for the word, "faces, like he was having a stroke or something and scared the hell out of my child."
Witnesses say that at first it all seemed innocent enough, but that Mr. Hershwin forgot the cardinal rule of Goo-Goo Eyeing: the time limit etiquette. Says bus operator Ned Schulman, "I get a lot of babies on my bus and I've seen all the faces, from the squiggly mouth to the peek-a-boo eyes, and the ones that get it right are the ones that know when to stop. Rule of thumb is that if one or two minutes go by and nothing works, just let it be. This guy just didn't have a clue."
In the context of Mr. Schulman's rule of thumb, Hershwin's Goo-Goo statistics are simply astounding: two minutes of the Ca-Ca face, one minute of A-Booga-Boos, ninety seconds of varied Fishy Faces, and a stunning ten straight minutes of the Raspberry hand.
Ms. Winston: "Oh, that was the worst. He must have been blowing into his hand for like a half hour. He had this really strange, intense look in his eyes, like this meant the world to him. If you ask me, the man's a lunatic and shouldn't be allowed to work anywhere near children."
And how does Mr. Hershwin respond to these allegations? "Well maybe I did go a little too far with some of the things I tried to get away with, but I just really wanted to help that poor little guy. Teething can be rough." But not as rough as what some say you put him through, eh, Mr. Hershwin? "Look, if caring is a crime, consider me guilty."
According to some Chesterfield Ridge residents, guilty as charged.
