By Doug Brunk, San Diego Bureau
During his dermatology residency at Duke University, Durham, N.C., in the mid-1970s, Dr. Manny Rothstein received a plastic two-handed back scratcher in the mail as a promotional giveaway from a drug company.
He initially shrugged off the gesture and stored the gadget on a shelf but began to notice that back scratchers come in all shapes and sizes. He became so infatuated by this that he developed an itch to collect them.
“It occurred to me, how many different ways can you make a long stick with a hand on the end? I was just amazed,” said Dr. Rothstein, a dermatologist who practices in Fayetteville, N.C. “Every time I turned around, I found another one. It just sort of blossomed.”
Today, his collection includes more than 620 back scratchers from 64 countries. He exhibits them in display cases that line the walls of his office. “My wife won't dare let me bring them home,” he said. “She is really supportive of my hobby, but she jokingly said that when I die she's going to burn them. I tried to tell her that the Smithsonian is dying to have them, but she doesn't believe me.”
The collection includes back scratchers made of ceramic, blown glass, jade, brass, silverware, wood, buffalo ribs (cowboy back scratchers), corn cobs (hillbilly back scratchers), leather, and plastic. Most are mass produced but many are handmade. The largest ones were 3–4 feet long—too big for a display case—and were stolen from his office this summer. They were made from a plaster mold of a bear footprint and a caribou horn served as the handle.
Patients visiting his office for the first time will say things like, “Can I go in the other room and see what else you have? Can I bring my mother in from the waiting room and let her see them?” Dr. Rothstein said. “It's fun. It's unique.”
USA Today selected one of the back scratchers as a winner of its “Tackiest Souvenir” contest, and Guinness World Records considers Dr. Rothstein's collection as the largest of its kind. In fact, the Guinness World Records 2001 book lists his collection in the Top Ten List of Weirdest New Records.
About once every 2 weeks Dr. Rothstein receives a new back scratcher as a gift from patients who return from vacation. “Patients don't mind getting them for me when they travel because they're inexpensive and they're light,” he said. “You can stick them in a suitcase with no problem.”
He buys about one per month on eBay and has more than 100 duplicate back scratchers. “Since there's nobody else who collects them, I can't trade with anybody, which is what I'd really like to do,” he said. “Sometimes, I give them away. I'm thinking I could probably sell a lot of them on eBay, but I haven't had the time to take pictures of them and send them in.”
The Doctor's Museum in Bailey, N.C., has offered to house his collection when Dr. Rothstein retires. But for now, the “fun of the hunt” for new back scratchers continues. “Every time I see one I don't have, I'm amazed,” he said. “How many different ways can you do this?”
Connecting Through Magic
As a youngster growing up in Wilkes-Barre, Pa., Dr. Jay Ungar became hooked on magic after a friend's father pulled a nickel out from behind his ear. He then visited the local library and read every book he could find about magic.
“It was so exciting to discover a whole world out there that you just couldn't explain,” recalled Dr. Ungar, who is now an internist and geriatrician based in Longmeadow, Mass., and at Tufts University in Boston.
During his internship and residency at Baystate Medical Center in Springfield, Mass., Dr. Ungar rekindled his childhood interest and began taking lessons from professional magicians. “I found that medicine was so high powered and intense that when I came home from work, I needed to decompress, and magic was a wonderful way to do that,” he explained.
Over the years, he discovered that magic became a unique way to bond with his patients. He adopted the alter ego of Ragnu (the OK) and began performing magic tricks for his patients at the end of their visits, such as changing dollar bills into fifties, making hankies disappear, and—for smokers trying to kick their habit—transforming packs of cigarettes into packs of chewing gum. “I found that most adults are like kids when they watch magic,” he said. “People loosen up; the tension that many feel when they're in the doctor's office seems to evaporate.” The real magic, he added, “is not so much in the tricks, but in the connection they create.”