!I bought a print awhile back, of the Camino,  a road  from France to the Spanish town of Santiago de Compostela.  The print was in a series of images in our library exploring the nature of roads. In my print , standing on the road, a trail really, was a  solitary lengthened shadow of a pilgrim supported by a stick. and the low sun, the sense of impending twilight, and the antiqued paper gave the road the quality of roughness and endless distance.
      A road always suggests a journey ;  leaving somewhere,  or something, or someone  and going to somewhere or something.  But the gist of the journey is the process,  not the beginning nor the end.  Not the future and not the past. The shadow on the road is fully on contact with it and its shape changes with the position of the sun on the traveler.  Our shadow portrays the nature of our journey much more than we credit.  The shadow looks forward and backward throughout the journey, leading and following, and foreshortened, watches the traveler from one side or the other as well, through much of the day. , the traveler footsore, and his progress is confined by the direction of the roadway.
          If it was the Road to Zanzibar  Dorothy Lamour makes with her friends, or the Yellow Brick Road , or the Camino Road, that  place. is where we are. This is where we are a step at a time and and moving  that distance at a step.  In my print  the solitary figure with a stick expressed by the shadow gives a feeling to the viewer of the loneliness of the roadway.  There is no Bing Crosby or Bob Hope to accompany Dorothy !  There is no Toto to accompany the other Dorothy ! There is no bicycle or automobile , just a narrow road in my print for which a  step is the only present and the only reality. My print could have been anywhere because  a road is a metaphor for life.
      I have never taken the Camino, the roadway to Santiago de Compostela and the Cathedral of St. James and I am now too old to do it, but a road,  is a road , is a road  and we all are on a roadway to somewhere and leaving somewhere with a goal of sorts.  We may find during the journey the shape of our shadow changed and sometimes learned from the roadway the real purpose was something else !
           

)When my father read the newspaper or a magazine in the olden days he often absentmindedly tore a corner or two or more off the page and swallowed it as he absorbed the news of the day. Cellulose is as indigestible as the news is, both in those days, and perhaps even more so today. Phytophagy (cellulose eating) can occasionally morph into a  compulsion to eat large amounts of indigestible plant matter unselectively and those who do are diagnosed as Phytophagiacs.
      The pathophysiology that may ensue leaves a growing mass of cellulose in the stomach that expands by accretion and becomes in time too big to leave the stomach and enter the more narrow aperture of the gastrointestinal tract beyond. This ball of cellulose and mucus is known as a Phytobezoar. A little like a wet snowball that rolls down the hill getting bigger and bigger until it can no longer enter the narrow mountain pass and obstructs any further travelers. Suffice to say this Phytobezoar is a result of a neurotic disorder and  becomes a surgical emergency.
        My dad never ate enough that accumulated, but as i reckoned back to my own life at home and his habit as I studied interesting psychiatric disorders in medical school such as this and  the equally colorful Trichobezoar (a Hair ball) ,  engendered in the same manner by eating your own hair, equally indigestible.
      My dad rarely read books so our books were unmarked. One always knew when he had read the paper or magazine however from the absent corners. It was like the neighborhood dog idly pissing against the tree without much thought, marking the corner of the neighborhood.  or Kilroy, here for a visit, marking with chalk  an a wall without much point except  to say that he was there.
       I confess I did the same corner munching as my father from time to time, embarrassingly, especially with books, tearing off a corner and  chewing it as I ingested the material and its content. It offended my friends if I had borrowed their book. Cellulose from paper is one thing but wooden matches, toothpicks, popsicle sticks and other wood and cardboard pieces are worse. Human beings are not beavers.The medical diagnostic  term "Pica" describes the activity madness of paint and dirt eating as a somewhat prevalent neurotic disorder in institutional patients. I am proud to say,  at least I only chewed and ingested  literature but, that's lipstick on the pig, paper  also qualifies as the madness of eating the describable indigestible. 
     When I first married the pianist she was horrified to see the ingestion of the corners of her books as I sought to read and ingest her interesting material. I realized then it was a form of marking, claiming ownership, territorial affirmation , however warped, but unconsciously and innocently done. A habit idly acquired is easily dispensed with in the interest of literary harmony when love holds  sway. I have never gone back to that bad habit.
      When my son, as a grownup became a bibliophile and had his own library I often read his books and carefully avoided eating the corners but often bent open the book spines for easier reading on the tighter new books. Again I was castigated for my destructive book tendencies. I am careful now to eat candy or popcorn  not paper when I read and strain to read newish books obliquely when semi-opened. I want to be good and avoid the sins of the father!
   
   

Having lived with the pianist for 64 years, our apparent differences in eating styles has remained largely unchanged over the years, so I asked myself to comment. It is also wise to watch someone eat before you consent to marry them as the eating styles display a certain reflection of their persona.
   I rush to say that  the pianist was an expert at food and menus inherited at her family home since her father was a wholesale grocer and her mother a scrupulous adherent to menus. At  their table, food was always a stable topic of discussion and healthy cooking was a premium consideration. In her family they ate and conversed throughout the meal. Assuredly since  eating and talking with decent intervals between chewing and swallowing for talking will minimize the risk of aspiration of food and the need for the Heimlich maneuver.
     On the other hand in my family of origin we ate, and then we talked. It may ,in part. have been we were all boys so conversation  gave way to eating. Once the plate was empty, we talked. This resulted in bolting our food but,  by not talking, the epiglottis remained closed over the trachea and aspiration was highly unlikely. I never remember the Heimlich maneuver ever having to be done in my family.
       The pianist and I are fork stabbers but i stab where the food lies and she gathers the food into the center before poking. Neither of us  use the ergonomically unsound American way of pinning the meat down with the fork so iy won't fly off the plate, and cutting it and changing the fork to the knife hand to scoop up  to the mouth.
       If we eat soup or cereal she spoons away from herself and I spoon toward myself. I often end up with a spot of soup on my front and crumbs of cereal in my tablecloth.
     She rotates around the plate eating in strict turn it seems one forkful of each of the four portions on the plate, whereas I eat the entire portion of each of the four one after the other. I suppose it matters little because they all mix up in the gut shortly thereafter.
   

This is no critique of the beautiful movie with Judy Garland, etc.,  but is only concerned with the published story of Frank Baum.
     The story of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz is , in my opinion, an exciting children's story with beautiful allusions of a psychoanalytic nature that has never been fully explored and never was apparent in the movie version.
        Most deconstructions written about the story have been centered on the political rather than the psychological or mystical aspects of the characters within Mr. Baum's story. As in any story of fiction,  it can be concluded that the characters always have some reflection  of aspects of Frank Baum himself. However moving along to the nub of it all, Dorothy is the psychological integrated self and therefore the least interesting.  The Wizard is a chameleon and therefore the disintegrated self !  The trio of Dorothy's co-adventurers are the most easily identified and have in fact the most interesting psychopathology from my standpoint
         Even though the characters eventually recognized the Wizard was a humbug, they clung to the crutch he offered. Or was he a humbug?  The analyst returns a bit of your own juices to you and calls it treatment.
He can't give you what you already have. He just puts a knob on your door to yourself. The successful analyst never seeks to alter the authenticity you own.
         Did the Cowardly Lion only recognized his courage other than though a magical drink, a given  placebo, a draft of courage.  He didn't know that he always had courage. He found that out when he realized that the Wizard wasn't a whiz. But wasn't he?
         Did the Scarecrow finally get his brains from a magical source?  He didn't twig to the fact that he was always smart until the Wizard took off Scarecrow's head and added a mix of bran and pins and needles. When we realize that what we seek is already inside of us, latent and awaiting discovery ; then the bran new sharp brain becomes  a useless reality a placebo !
          Did the Tinman get a heart other than a silk valentine transplant from the Wizard  using a can opener to  his chest? Nonsense!  The Tinman always had a heart but his heart was in the right place ; his head ! His attitude throughout the journey with his companions always told us that fact. He just didn't recognize it. He never knew that there is in everyone a place for the heart in the head.
           None of this trio realized their gifts until they combined their brains,  love and courage,  to help Dorothy to get home. We will never know what went on in the author's head. Maybe it's a mistake to deconstruct a story. Still,there are two bookends to any story.  The author and the intent, the reader and the understanding. What he said and what I heard. They may not be the same. It may not be important that they are the same.
        In any medical practice the power of placebo and mind over matter is seen over and over again !