The DU Lounge

...there was a store in the Princeton Marketfaire mall called "Pipsqueak and Wilfred." As anticipatory parents we went there often, thinking of toys that would be interesting and stimulating.

People who were parents thought we were nuts, and perhaps we were, but I remember the place fondly, very happy memories going there until he was five or six and the place closed.

My oldest son had a lot of surgeries as a preschooler, and before each one we'd take hints there to pick out a "treatment prize," to put some kind of positive spin on the process. We'd give the prize in the recovery room.

It seems weird I guess to remember that otherwise painful stuff in a positive light, but somehow I do.

The place closed probably more than two decades ago, but I remember it fondly.

I'd like to think that store had something to do, in a small way, with the fine man he grew up to be.