Most of my life (before I sort of figured life out) I looked forward to 65 as the age where one would retire. Now I'm here and enjoying every day too much to retire. Some days are tiring at this age and I really need week-ends to recover, but each day brings new excitement, more incite and even new light bulbs still going on in my mind. Until you get there you can't imagine how cool it is to get to see every new day in grandchildren's eyes, and I get to see it double "up close and personal" every day at my house.
So on this day when I conclude the 65th year of being on this earth, I decided to recount where I was and little things about the "5" years. It all started at Newman Hospital in Emporia, Kansas at 6:38 p.m. on April 18, 1944.
The first 5 found me in Columbus and as always my birthday fell around Easter. It was probably about 5 that I was riding my bike one day when a bigger boy decided to try to take it away from me. I went riding down the street in Buckeye Village as fast as I could go and ran smack into a milk truck. I think the boy was so frightened by the accident that he ran away, and I obviously recovered and went on with childhood. Another memory of this time is playing baseball in the "quad". I was the batter and I swung back so hard that I hit the catcher in the forehead and knocked him out. Maybe that's why I'm not a huge baseball fan (that and the fact that later mom didn't want me to play catcher, which was my favorite position, because I might get him in the mouth and not be able to play trombone).
I have to mention my 10th birthday because it is the only one that I remember exactly what I did. My family went to Oklahoma City to Herman's Seafood restaurant and I took my best friend Billy McGrew. I had fried shrimp which was my favorite food at the time. Billy McGrew is drawing near to the end of his career as a world expert in the social habits of apes and chimps.
By 15 my trombone was a huge part of my life and we had been living in Norman, Oklahoma for almost 10 years. Trombone stories include riding my bicycle to school across town from our second Norman home at 1212 Cruce to Norman Junior High on the East side of town. One cold morning as I was tooling along on my bike with my trombone case on top of the bar and the handle bars I went around a corner close to home and skidded on ice and everything went down. It seems like I had a lot of crashes growing up but such is the saga of those who are not "looking where they are going". Maybe perfect firsts spend too much time "looking ahead" to try to figure out what they want us to be when we grow up.
By 15 I had achieved a 1++ rating on my trombone solo at the District Elimination music contest in Oklahoma City and the judge said "I have never heard a better junior high trombonist". This was when I was 12. By 13 I had finished my Eagle Scout rank. (Not much time for baseball)
Needless to say, a ton of stuff went down between 15 and 25, the most significant of which was finding and marrying the love of my life, the Lituanian bombshell!! I was lucky that she didn't have any brothers and thus didn't know how weird I was. I met her while doing medical school at Northwestern. I turned 25 9 months after our
wedding at the old Lithuanian church in Chicago. It was the biggest event of my life to that point and was the largest wedding I had ever attended.
By 35 I had done residency at CHLA and Michael A. had been born in 1972.
I started Saddleback Pediatrics with Norm Zeller in Mission Viejo, Ca. in July of 1973 and Vanessa was born 2 days after my Easter birthday in 1976.
Age 35 found the family living in Lake Forest and we soon became immersed in school and soccer for the kids, running for me and our annual trips to Snowmass and Alisal. Traditions seemed important
and we continued to go to Snowmass to ski in February with the John Fowle family for ten years. August 2009 will be our 31st week at the Alisal Ranch.
At 45 my family was still in Lake Forest and we had added another doctor to the family. Vera attained her law degree from Western State Law School in 1988.
No comments:
Post a Comment