Why "The Shirt Hospital?"

Because I said so, and it's too complicated to explain!  Or:  two men are waiting for cabs.  One has a shirt, and in the inane vein of waiting-for-a-cab conversation, he's asked what he's going to do with it.  "Take it to the shirt hospital."  He's hired on the spot as the other man's assistant.  The shirt man's name was Mr. MacGregor; his erstwhile employer was none other than the inimitable Robert Benchley, whom I will always love. 

Mr. Benchley and I have a complicated relationship.  There's a third party, a man, who doesn't even know of his involvement.  If I were to tell him he might take it as an insult.  He's prickly these days.  He's an extremely successful psychologist who has had a life-long desultory battle with pompousness.

In Dallas, there is a chain of stores, Half-Price Books.  Self-explanatory.  By the grace of God, in the 1980s, in the mothership Half-Price Books, I found hardback after hardback of Mr. Benchley's pieces, dating back to the '20s.  Also by the grace of God, I was in therapy with a great psychologist.  Mr. Benchley's comedy got me through many a minute in between sessions.  Now here's the complicated part:  Gluyas' Williams' illustration of Robert Benchley looked exactly like my therapist. Well, almost exactly, anyway.  To a comforting extent.  It could be that the similitude increased the comic value of the writing.  But I got to know Mr. Benchley quite well, I did.  I share the ineptitude he ascribed to himself.  But he made it look good.

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Yes, shirt hospital as microcosm of creation.  The creating you do with Play-Doh, or making the Holy Grail.

Can anyone else hear those bagpipes?