Ol' Dan Tucker (or "Old Dan Tucker") is an old song I learned with a number of others as a very little boy. I had a record player that was in a little suit case with a handle. I could lay it down flat, open the top, plug in the cord, set a record on the turntable, turn it on, and place the needle at the edge of the 78 rpm disk. I remember a particular record - it was yellow - that had Oh Susannah, Ol' Dan Tucker, some nursery rhyme songs. I played it all the time.
But I could never figure out the lyric that reports that Ol' Dan Tucker "died with a toothache in his heel." Your teeth are in your head, I carefully reasoned. How can you have a tooth ache in your foot? I laughed. Somebody was making a joke.
Somebody was telling the truth.
I hurt my right foot, specifically my right heel, at CrossFit a couple of months ago. I ignored the pain, and the pain only got worse. I finally limped to a podiatrist. His diagnosis, after an x-ray and an MRI (I do what I can to support the medical profession these days), was plantar faciitis. I had this problem once before, but the pain was centered at my arch. This pain is in my heel. Like a sharp nail is buried in it, point up.
And its killing me. I probably won't die, but I finally understand what happened to Ol' Dan Tucker, poor guy.
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