I can’t put all the stories of my practice years in chronological order, so I have tried to put it in decades as best I could. The stories are not connected but they should be remembered for just happening and enjoyed.
As I mentioned before, I took a part-time job at Yale and started a private practice with a Dr. Charles Meacham in Stamford, Connecticut. The private association lasted only a year before I went out on my own.
I continued keeping up my reserve commission in the Army. The Vietnam War was on, so I did not want to join a local reserve unit and then accidentally get called up.
I joined an Army school in White Plains and went one evening a week for a lecture. While the instructor lectured, I sat in the back and dictated my notes for the week. The way I covered myself for two weeks in the summer was to go to Walter Reed Hospital.
A doctor I trained with was now at Walter Reed, and he arranged for me to come down to Washington. This lasted for two years, and then I got a letter from the Army. They gave me three options: I could join a regular unit -- which I wasn’t going to do -- retire -- which I wasn’t able to do -- or resign.
I had delusions that with my connections at Walter Reed, I might make General. It was easy to make Colonel. I was commissioned in June 1954, and this was now 1968. I was also annoyed that I had not been promoted to Major since I was made Captain in 1959 with five years of service credit.
My next trip to Walter Reed, I called up the department at the Pentagon that was in charge of my orders. Another idea that I had was about space availability. They had just started it again. This meant I could go out to Fort McGuire in New Jersey, take Sally and fly anywhere.
I called up the Pentagon and a sergeant picked up the phone. I explained my problem. He said he would get me someone. The next person I talked to was a General. It must have been the smallest office in the entire Pentagon.
I tried to explain my problem without saying that I wanted to keep my commission in order to get something out of the Army -- like free travel and get a star.
I asked the General what advantages there were if I stayed in the reserve. There was a pregnant pause and then he told me I could wear my uniform on holidays. I thanked him and put my resignation in that day.
I also told him I had not been promoted, even though I had collected the appropriate amount of points each year. Then I got multiple letters, which I didn’t understand. I got promoted to Major and then got my discharge. Then I got a letter promoting me to Lt. Colonel after the fact.
That same year, I was also made a permanent consultant to the Surgeon General of the Army and went to Walter Reed four times a year. This had nothing to do with my resignation. Most of the Walter Reed stories I will put in another section.
Salt Box Grill
Meanwhile back in Darien, we were getting our lives together and settling in to our future. The kids were in schools that we wanted, and Sally was getting adjusted. She was playing tennis a lot since we had a court just down the street.
I was busy building a large barbecue pit. I was usually messy and sweaty on Saturday afternoons. One of our good friends came over one day in his crisp, tennis whites with Sally and proceeded to explain to me some of the architectural problems with my fireplace. I wasn’t pleased with his comments, so I did not offer him a drink.
The barbecue pit really did get out of hand; one corner tilted a little. However, it was sturdy since I had to borrow a sledgehammer to knock some of it down years later when I was rebuilding it. As I was rebuilding it, I was starting to find a metal fabricating place to make the two grills.
One evening, our neighbors, the Browns, came over for a cookout and my new grill was a topic of conversation. I explained my problem with the grills. Don Brown said he would get them made by his company. He was president of a company that made Texas oil towers. His foreman asked if I was planning to cook the entire cow. We settled on a slight change in design and cut the grill into two. I got the two grills and they lasted all the time we were at Salt Box.
Nixon's Inauguration
One of the fun things in the '60s was going to President Nixon’s inauguration in 1969. Sally called for the inauguration ball tickets and we planned to go. Things were a lot easier in those days. I arranged to go to Walter Reed for tax reasons.
Since I was considered a VIP, I got a reservation at a place across the street from the hospital, which was called the Walter Reed Inn. It wasn’t very fancy but adequate. This would be the infamous Building 18 in the Army scandals in 2008. It had its unique features like rubber sheets.
While I worked, Sally went down to Union Station to get the inauguration ball tickets. They asked her if we wanted to go the gala at the Kennedy Center and some affair at the Association of the American States. She plunked down the money and we went to everything. It was all wonderful.
After the gala, we went upstairs where only 500 could go for dinner. The Third Infantry in colonial-era uniforms piped us in. We got a drink and were standing near a stanchion and started talking to a very nice elderly lady. Then Sally suggested I get a refill for the three of us, and I obliged. When I came back, a small man followed by a three-star general had joined us. I assumed he was a big sponsor and they were looking out for him.
I then used my best charm and introduced myself and they did the same. I told him I was from Darien, Connecticut, and he said he was from Alaska. He asked me what I did and I told him I was a doctor. That is when my charm failed. He told me he was governor.
The next thing I know, he and the lady and the three stars left us without saying a word. Sally asked me what I had said to upset him. Did I tell a bad joke? I told her no. It seems not only did I not recognize him as a former governor of Alaska, but also he happened to be a Democrat by the name of William Egan.
Despite that, we had a grand evening. The next day, we went to the parade and then the inaugural ball at the Smithsonian. We got in very late that night and planned to sleep in. It was not to happen. It seems the rest of the motel was taken over for the Congressional Medal of Honor winners and they wanted them out early, so we got out of our rubber sheets and got out with the rest.
I’m not making it up that the sheets were rubber. The interesting thing about this was that this building was later owned by Haliburton and run for Walter Reed. They called it Building 18, which had so much bad publicity about it in 2008 and resulted with the commanding officer of Walter Reed, the Surgeon General of the Army and the Secretary of the Army being fired.
The motel in 2008 was not run by the Army, but the commanding officer had a bad mouth before Congress and did not present a good image. We left D.C. and returned home.
The next day, I went to Yale and was just going to stay for rounds and then go to my office in Stamford. I came out and my car had been stolen.
It turned out the locals picked up a car on their way to school. This time, it was two. One kid was 12 and the other was 14. The latter was driving. The police found them after they had a 90-mile-an-hour race through New Haven. That ended by crashing the car and totally ruining it. Unfortunately, the kids did not get a scratch, and the police did not prosecute them. They said that at that age they would get probation. Despite the chase, those kids managed to get rid of my rented tux, dictating machine and my radio. It takes me that long to unlock the car door and get it started.
Mrs. Toni
It was about that time we found a woman we called Mrs. Toni, who did a lot of baby-sitting for us during the week. She also was a dependable house-sitter whenever Sally and I traveled. The kids loved her because she would cook and bake for them. And she was good with our dog.
It was during this decade I would get a call from Jan Van Delft from time to time. Considering having multiple glaucoma procedures, two cataracts, five hip operations and one carotid cleaned out, he was doing well.
One day, I got a call from him and he suggested we get together for dinner. I asked him what hotel he was staying at. He said he was at Presbyterian Hospital. I told him that was not a hotel. It seems he was in New York to go with his people to Mali. He had another TIA, and he went to the hospital and they did his other carotid.
This TIA was a plus for a change. It seems Peter Grace had several candy companies and chocolate was getting scarce. Jan had heard the Mali nut could be used as a substitute. Mr. Grace said he should go with a few of the experts from the company and see if it would work and could it be harvested in volume.
It turned out his TIA saved his life. Somebody had gotten some British Embassy stationery and wrote the president of Mali that five Americans were coming to kill him. They were arrested upon arrival and put in a third-world jail.
It took Mr. Grace a month to get them out. Jan would never have survived. I will tell you more about him later when I talk about running a meeting in Malaga, Spain, in 1980.
Our Texaco Friends
Then there was John Dea. He had just retired from a very senior position at Texaco and I met him through another friend at Texaco named Bill Barrack. The girls used to ride horses with the Barracks’ daughter and that is how we became friends with Bill and Irene Barrick, as well as with John Dea and his wife Bea.
John had a big cataract in one eye and wanted it out. He was 20/20 in the other. I asked him why he felt he needed it out. He said he liked to hunt. So, I said fine and planned to do him later in June. He said if I could do it after Labor Day.
I felt that I said something wrong and he was putting it off. John said no. He just wanted to go fishing. I assumed he meant going after bluefish, which is popular in Long Island Sound. It turned out that his idea was to go with friends to Greenland for salmon. He went and returned with a 30-pound salmon for me as a gift. I told John I’d do his other eye anytime. Sally liked him because he went to Notre Dame. This was the beginning of our association with Texaco, which looked after us on more than one occasion.
My Buddy Bob
Another person who walked into my life was Bob Woods, who I still have lunch with to this day. I mentioned him in the West Point chapter. He walked into my office one Saturday morning. Like a lot of men in Darien and New Canaan, they are very casual on Saturdays. But on Monday, it is the Armani suit and the limousine to take them to New York.
Bob was 10 years my senior and about three inches taller. He was slim and straight as an arrow. I noticed the West Point ring and I happened to have on a West Point tie. We talked and, as usual, the conversation was what class and we told our stories.
I told him that he looked great, and I bet he could still get in his uniform. He then said with a straight face that he could not get into his riding boots anymore because his calves were too big from too much tennis. I told him I wanted to smack him. He had a retinal detachment, which I eventually fixed, and we became friends.
Bob is also the luckiest man alive. He wanted to go to the Academy but couldn’t get an appointment. He went to Bucknell for a year and then went to Annapolis. He spent two years there and then got an appointment to West Point and entered in July 1941. This is why he was lucky. When he graduated in June 1945, the war was almost over.
In his last year, he was First Captain. He married a very pretty lady the day after graduation, and the next day his picture was on the front cover of Time magazine, touting him as a future chief of staff. He got lucky again. He did his four years, which was the time frame at that time. He finished his obligation in June of 1949 and left the Army. This was a year before the Korean War.
Bob had other jobs but finished up as president of Doubleday Publishing. Mr. Doubleday was very cheap. He owned everything, and there were no stock options in that company at that time. However, when the company was sold to a German firm, Bob got lucky again. He got stock.
Another story of Bob’s was when he was on the Beast Detail in his second year. This detail was the men who just finished their first year and were in charge of taking charge of the new cadets.
One new Cadet came with a straw hat and his golf clubs. One of the Beasties relieved him of both. A few minutes later, another young man had on a straw hat. The Beastie came over to him and pulled it down over his ears. He had had enough of straw hats. The only problem was that he was not a new cadet but a cigar salesman and was looking for the commissary. Oops.
Another story that Bob told me was about the Thayer Hotel. It sits on the bluff overlooking the Hudson River. The hotel was located on a very steep hill, making nearly impossible to mow the grass. It seems they had a few goats they let graze there to help cut the lawn. I never went to the Thayer until Dad and Jo came up for Christmas, but I never saw the goats.
Heart of Goldstein
I had another interesting patient named Nat Goldstein. He was a circulation executive for the New York Times and knew everybody, and everybody knew him. One day, he asked me if I wanted a diamond pin. I thought it was some deal he had in the Diamond District. I played along. Instead, Nat gave me a dime on a safety pin that was painted gold. He gave me a bunch of them. It turned out to be his trademark. I still have some in the top drawer of my dresser.
Another story about Doc Schardt was during this decade. When Doc retired, he went to work for NASA. It turned out that he was in charge of putting cargo and projects on Saturn rockets. One night, I called him up without announcing myself and asked him for two aisle seats, non-smoking. I didn’t have to identify myself. He knew nobody else would make such a phone call.