I graduated in June 1964 at Rice University and decided to take a trip to Europe before starting Medical School in the fall. My parents indicated they would fund the trip and consider it a graduation present. Imagine my excitement when I learned that one of the Rice Board of Trustees who owned the Bloomfield Shipping line offered four free round trips to Europe in a contest for graduates. The only requirements were to leave on the last port of call of the ship and disembark on the first port we reached and return from the last port returning to the United States. Two friends, Tom Sears and Larry Yeatman, and I were all accepted. The other passenger was Marty Buckley who was a Rice student from Midland, Texas.

My Dad invested in a VW bus for me which we planned to use and return to Houston and hopefully make a profit. One week before departure we were notified to meet our ship, the SS Alice Brown, in New Orleans on June 8. We took a bus to New Orleans and boarded the Alice Brown where we learned we were the only passengers and the ship was not leaving until the following morning.

We decided to spend our last evening ashore in the French Quarter and were able to see the famous trumpeter Al Hirt and jazz clarinetist Pete Fountain. I played the clarinet in my high school band and could appreciate the skill of these musicians. Another group was the Preservation Hall Jazz Band which played in a small room open to Bourbon Street and allowed people to stand next to the musicians. We concluded our evening at Pat O’briens Bar and gardens with their famous hurricane cocktails.

I was sound asleep when I was jolted awake by the sudden motion of the ship. I quickly dressed and ran out on deck convinced our voyage had begun but was surprised that we were moving up the Mississippi. A crewman told me we were going upriver to load more cargo at the Napolean wharf, a military area. None of us really felt like another night in the French Quarter but after realizing it was our last night before two weeks at sea we went anyway. That afternoon I was taking a walk when I thought my trip was over before it began when I was attacked with a chokehold from behind and told I was under arrest. I had been photographing the Dixie Queen, a paddle steamboat and forgotten it was a military area and no pictures were allowed. I explained my situation and the soldier released me after confiscating my film.

The following morning the SS Alice Brown started weaving down the Mississippi. The terrain consisted of countless marshy island and lagoons. I wondered where Andrew Jackson and his troops had fought the Battle of New Orleans in 1814 because there was no dry land until we reached open water.

None of us had sailed on the ocean and we worried about being seasick for two weeks. To our great joy the Gulf of Mexico and most of the west Atlantic Ocean were as smooth as molasses. We met Eric who was our steward and turned out to be an interesting guy. He woke us at 7:30 for breakfast. We spent most of the day reading or learning to play a cheap Decca guitar with a Weavers songbook I bought in New Orleans. Our daily pattern was to go back to bed after breakfast, get up for lunch at 11:00 walk around the ship or exercise in the afternoon, and clean up for dinner at 5:00. In the evening we often played bridge until midnight. When we passed the lights of Key West we witnessed a terrific electric storm over Florida. One night we were startled by four long blasts from our ship. We ran on deck just in time to see our bow barely miss running over a small boat showing only one small light. We discussed whether the boat was a drug runner or possibly carrying people escaping Cuba.

One night after dinner we were invited by First Mate Schulmeyer to visit the bridge. He explained that every day they post our position and distance to our destination. That day we were near Miami and 4,194 miles to Le Havre France. The ship made 400 miles a day and was predicted to arrive around June 22. We could see the hotels of Miami and West Palm Beach but about 60 miles south of Cape Kennedy we turned out into the Atlantic to catch the Gulf stream. First Mate Schulmeyer showed us a Coast Guard map showing iceberg limits and paths of famous unusually large bergs. He stated that we would cross a very small portion of the iceberg area but June is the time of year they are coming down.

One night Eric invited us to use the ship to shore radio and I was able to talk to my parents for a few minutes. They were surprised and relieved to talk to me from the Atlantic Ocean. Later that evening we were talking to Eric and he revealed that he had two wives. One wife lived in Mobile, Alabama and the other lived in Hamburg, Germany. They did not know about his unusual lifestyle and he admitted he had to be careful to keep their names straight but he was never lonely when he was in port.

First Mate Schulmeyer calculated we should reach Le Havre about June 23 but shocked us when he announced that our first port might be Gdansk, Poland since we were carrying a large cargo of grain that we might have to unload first. This was a major problem since none of us had visas for Poland and I had plans to meet friends in Paris who were going to travel with me on the VW bus.

On June 22 we were passed by a huge passenger ship, the SS United States, which was making 33 Knots to our 15. We were near the English channel and soon could see Bishop Rock. Our course was still Le Havre. We went by Normandy beach and could see the famous beaches of Utah and Omaha which were stormed almost exactly twenty years ago on D-day by Allied forces. Some German concrete bunkers were still visible.

We had to negotiate two locks to get to our berth. A huge ship in the harbor was a US Carrier the SS Essex. We were all enchanted by thepastel cliffs of Le Havre with quaint little cars and hundreds of bikes. The town and harbor had been completely destroyed in World War II but rebuilt in the original style. We learned that Americans were not welcome because of the extensive damage we caused to the docks and city. Our voyage was over but our summer trip to Europe had just begun.

My world began in Bowie, Texas.  Oh, I was born in Mt. Vernon, Illinois, almost exactly three months after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.  My dad was an oil rig driller, working to produce oil from the shallow fields in southern Illinois for the war effort. My brother Wayne had been born in Cisco, Texas, almost four years before me. I was the first Hansen to be born outside of Texas since my great grandfather had immigrated from Denmark in 1865.  I don’t remember the famous white squirrels of Olney, Illinois or the paralyzing mud of the Illinois oil fields during the winters. My first memories are of our farmhouse in Bowie, a two story house surrounded by acres of land, a large pond filled with fish and frogs and the windmill that provided all our water.

My brother and I hunted for birds with Daisy Red Rider BB guns which propelled their projectiles at such a slow speed you could see them leave the barrel and sail away to the target. Nothing ever struck by our sluggish BB’s ever suffered more than a temporary sting if they were hit by one of our shots.  Looking back on this fact makes the Daisy seem like a perfect weapon for boys our age.  Once during a battle of cowboys and Indians I attacked too soon and took a BB in the back from a playmate but it did not even break my skin.

Bowie was named after a famous Texas hero who died at the Alamo during the war with Mexico that resulted in Texas Independence. He had developed a large hunting knife that was widely adopted by frontiersmen who referred to it as the Bowie knife and was used for more than hunting. The town is northwest of Fort Worth and is in the ancestral lands of the Comanche tribe known as Comancheria.  Eighty years before we lived there this land was very much on the frontier and only the very brave or very foolish settlers would dare to put their families in such danger.  My brother and I sought make-believe danger to make our play more exciting. Several generations before our time in Bowie battles between cowboys and Indians there would have been a life and death affair.

Our other playmate was our cocker spaniel we named Smokey because he had a patch of white on his chest of his otherwise jet black coat. He was a loyal companion who readily followed orders no matter how ridiculous they were. But one command he never obeyed, however, was to jump into our pond. We thought cocker spaniels were bird dogs and, as such, should be able to swim in order to fetch game but our dog seemed to avoid the water if at all possible. We determined to find out if he had the right stuff.  My brother and I took positions on opposite sides of the pond and the one without Smokey would whistle and call for him with great enthusiasm. He, of course, would charge around the pond and never get a paw wet.  After several futile attempts to entice him into the water we decided to take drastic measures. Together we picked Smokey up and on the count of three we tossed him as far as we could into the pond.  I remember that he was slowly rotating in the air and his ears were sticking out from his head at such a degree he looked like a small black helicopter.  He never made a sound as he entered the water and completely disappeared under the surface. We fully expected him to emerge in a few seconds and swim back to shore but to our horror there was no sign of him. All we saw were the enlarging circles of wavelets reaching out from his point of entry. My brother and I exchanged glances and without a word we both jumped as far as we could into the pond to save our faithful companion.  I remember we were still in the air when Smokey suddenly popped to the surface with a look of joy I will never forget.  Years later in West  Texas we would take him dove hunting to a watering hole supplied by a windmill and I would recall our attempt to test him only to find that we were the ones that had failed.

One day another dog entered our lives.  He was a stray with no collar, a tall short-haired black mix who seemed very smart. He was twice as tall as Smokey but they were very compatible and we adopted him with the unimaginative name of Blackie. The dogs never fought and were great friends and playmates.  One day during a blizzard we discovered which of the two dogs was dominant.  My dad had built a doghouse that was big enough for both of them but had only a small door. During the storm we looked out our window and could barely make out that the doghouse door was completely filled with Smokey’s rump.

A neighbor farmer appeared one day at our front door with his hat in his hand and politely asked to see the lady of the house. I ran to get mother and together we walked to the door. In his gentle Texas twang he slowly stated that we had to do something about our dog. When mother asked if he could explain the problem he stated that our dog had been getting into his chicken pen and killing some of them.  We were shocked to hear this and assumed it had to be Blackie given his background as a stray.  I was dispatched to get the dogs and returned with them for his review. Mother had already apologized for Blackie and asked the man if he was the culprit but to our great surprise the farmer said “No, it’s not the big one, it’s that little one!” To this day I believe Smokey understood the whole episode. He had a look of total embarrassment that I had never seen.  To his credit, he reformed and never bothered the man’s chickens again.

We loved playing with toy guns and one day Dad came home with a new type of toy gun for us.  It was a plastic pistol with a tiny plastic man equipped with a parachute. You wrapped him with the parachute and stuffed the whole thing down the barrel of the pistol feet first. When the gun was fired the man was ejected by a spring about twenty five feet in the air. The parachute opened and the man drifted slowly back to earth. After shooting him into space about a thousand times, we decided to try it ourselves. Since I was the smallest I was selected to be parachute man.  We collected an old sheet and some string and got to work.  The string was attached to multiple sites on the edge of the sheet and then to my belt. I then courageously marched up to the second floor of the house, opened the screen window and stepped out onto the small section of roof that circled the house between the first and second floors.  After some appropriate drama concerning the need to bail out of a crashing plane that was on fire and yelling some appropriate bravado such as “Geronimo!” I stepped out into thin air. I fell like a rock to the lawn and thought I might be knocked out until I realized it was dark because I was completely covered by the sheet. My brother, probably thinking I might be dead, ran into the house and announced to mother that Jerry had jumped off the roof. I was uninjured but my flight status was suspended and I don’t think I ever saw the parachute man again.

“There’s an Indian behind every tree.” So said Everett Jones as he described my new home to be in Midland in far West Texas. Everett was a native of Kentucky, my Dad’s business partner, and known to be a man who enjoyed a good joke. I guess I should have known better than to believe him but I was eight years old and wasn’t too sure what to expect outside of Dallas. And besides, everyone knew that Everett was a war hero, having flown over thirty missions over Germany in his B-24 bomber and lived to tell about it. World War II had ended abruptly five years ago and Everett had decided to embark on another risky line  of work, the oil business. He and my Dad were working at the Standard Fryer Drilling Company owned by R.J. Fryer. Dad was moving our family to Midland to run their rigs in the booming Permian Basin oil fields. I knew he was glad to be leaving Dallas because he was more comfortable in the wide open spaces of Texas and not commuting to an office every day.

Everett sensed I was a little nervous about moving to Midland but could not resist one parting piece of advice, “Be careful, Jerry, because everything living in West Texas has horns, thorns, or fangs.” When we were finally approaching Midland after a six hour drive, I immediately knew he had been teasing me about the Indians at least because there were no trees to hide behind. The beautiful oak trees of East Texas had been replaced by scrawny, ugly, mesquite bushes with, sure enough, long thorns.

Midland at some point in time began to call itself “The Tall City.” This was partially due to a few buildings which reached ten or twelve stories but mostly because the landscape was so incredibly flat they could be seen from thirty miles away. It is no wonder that Midland and two of it’s neighbors, Big Spring and Abilene, each had their own air force base because novice military pilots could always find an emergency landing place on the flat terrain of West Texas.

I started school in the middle of the third grade at West Elementary. The other kids had already determined who their friends were and did not quite know whether to admit me into their ranks. Things changed after the first recess period. Play at recess consisted of a tough game of dodgeball. Two teams were picked from the group of potential players and then each player took turns trying to hit one of the opponents  standing next to a building wall with a volleyball without the ball being caught. I managed to plunk a few players including their team captain and my status improved immediately.

It is appropriate that a game should have provided me with an easy entry into my new world. I am proud to say that many of those third grade dodgeball players are still friends today. They were my classmates and teammates in flag football, basketball, baseball, track and field and most importantly, high school football.

There must be something in the mineral rich water in West Texas that causes temporary insanity in the citizenry in the fall regarding high school football. Other factors may be an exaggerated sense of town honor in communities with only one high school, the lack of other entertainment, and the frontier spirit passed on by cowboys who enjoyed a good fight. Midland played in a conference with Odessa, San Angelo, Big Spring and Abilene which was nicknamed the little Southwest conference since the winner often went on to win the state championship. After I graduated Odessa started a second high school, Odessa Permian, whose football team became so successful that a book

“Friday Night Lights” was written by H.G. Bissinger about the drive of their team for the state championship. The book led to a movie and a television series that ran for several years.

Midland society was surprisingly sophisticated for a town of around 50,000 in the middle of nowhere. The first residents were some rancher families who had been barely making a living until oil was found in 1923 in the Permian Basin and they became fabulously wealthy. Many residents were highly educated geologists, petroleum engineers, wildcatters, financiers, and bankers. As a result, Midland did develop cultural institutions such as a symphony orchestra, a resident Theatre company, the Museum of the Southwest and an observatory to supplement more traditional activities such as a “World” Championship rodeo and a gaslight era melodrama called the Summer Mummers. One leading oilman, Carleton Beale, even developed a polo competition which must have befuddled the local cowboys tremendously.

The men who were in the oil business, particularly the independent operators, were gamblers and risk takers. One friend of our family,

1. C. Williamson, a geologist, lost six million dollars in 1958 to a famous scam artist named Billie Sol Estes. Mr. Estes sold nitrogen fertilizer tanks to investors all over the southwest. The only problem with his business plan was that he was selling the same tanks to different investors over and over again. When the scheme collapsed many expected that J.C might use one of the tall buildings in Midland as a platform to jump to his death but he attended the weekly meeting of the Midland High School Football Booster Club and behaved as if nothing had happened. Within a year J.C. discovered another huge oil field and according to his daughter he never seemed to let his loss bother him.

George H.W. and Barbara Bush caught the “Black Gold” fever and left Yale University and their prominent position in New England society to make it on their own in the “Oil Patch” of West Texas. George took a job in sales at Dresser Industries. The Bush family lived in Odessa, Texas, and briefly in Bakersfield, California, another oil area but in 1950 moved into a small house on Ohio Street in Midland. He soon formed an oil development company with Hugh Liedtke named Zapata Oil. The Bushes lived four blocks away from our home on 1702 Kansas Street.

Everyone who became friends with them including my dad thought they were fine people. George loved baseball and one of his community activities was to coach Pony League baseball. When he was elected the 41st President of the United States, I called my brother and admitted that if your Pony League baseball coach can become President, anybody can.

George W. Bush was the oldest son of George and Barbara. He was born in 1946 and was four years behind me at Sam Houston Elementary and San Jacinto Junior High. The Bush family moved to Houston in 1959 and unfortunately I never knew George.  Years later George W. moved back to Midland and became very good friends with my friend from dodgeball days, Charles Younger. Charles was also my roommate at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical School in Dallas and had returned to Midland to practice orthopedic surgery. In 2000 when it became apparent George W. would be the Republican nominee for President many reporters descended on Midland to get some background (i.e. dirt) about George. They couldn’t find anyone to say anything bad about George until finally Charles remarked that everyone thought George was a great guy and a loyal friend but “nobody thought he was smart enough to be President.” That statement was only partially true because when George was elected the 43rd President of the United States he arranged a flight to Washington and tickets to an Inaugural Ball for his friends from Midland, including Charles.

Dad and Mom both loved living in Midland. He became a partner when Standard Fryer Drilling Company became Fryer and Hanson Drilling Company. He was running rigs over a huge territory from Farmington, New Mexico to New Iberia, Louisiana and even in western Pennsylvania. During a trip to Pennsylvania in the winter he almost died when the wings of the company airplane began to accumulate ice which caused the plane to lose altitude. The pilot announced the plane was in danger or crashing unless they could reach some warmer air. Finally the ice began to melt when they were near the ground and they were able to land safely but not before dad promised himself that if he survived he would sell the plane and drive to his drilling locations regardless of how far they were.

A combination of fast cars and straight empty highways allowed him to keep his promise to abandon air travel. He could visit drilling sites 500 miles away in northern New Mexico and return the same day. I realize now that mother must have been worried about his safety during those long trips but he never had an accident. He did take time during his trips to have a little fun. During Easter one year he returned from a small truck stop at Four Corners, New Mexico, with a box labeled Easter Bunny Rabbit. He presented the rabbit to me as a present. I carefully opened the box only to find the only sign it ever held a bunny were some droppings it might have left. Then I found the card that read “Whoops! Looks like he got away!”

I wish I had asked my Mom and Dad why they chose to build their first, and as it turned out their last, home at the end of Kansas Street next to a vacant lot. West Texas is notoriously short on water and trees but land, now you’re talking. Midland, Texas was a fast growing town riding an oil boom in the Permian Basin in the early 1950’s and housing was in short supply.  We were renting a house on Storey street in west Midland and I was a twelve year old boy who thought things were pretty good. Houses on Storey must have been built for renters since almost every family had just moved in. I learned many of my friends had moved multiple times in their short lives as their dads chased the oil dream. The neighborhood was filled with kids my age who became my first real friends. We shared the joys of water balloon fights, learned to hunt for horned frogs and rabbits, and ride bikes for hours a day. We also learned how to cope with disappointments when some of us didn’t make the Little League team or, almost as bad, play on different teams against each other. Now, over 60 years later, I remember their names and faces and when together we can resume our friendships as if the passage of time did not really exist.

Eddie McFarland became an oil executive for Marathon Oil in the North Sea. Bill Worley assumed his dad’s Memorial Park. It was a complete accident when I was watching television in Hartford Connecticut and recognized my friend Hilton Kaderli who was giving the weather report. Bill Brown became a major home builder in

Houston. Some friends stayed in the Permian Basin and worked in the oil business but our generation were no longer roughnecks, wildcatters, geologists or land men. Tevis Herd is an oil and gas attorney and “Ruff” Ahders, my best friend, was a personal injury attorney in Odessa. Bill Munn still lives in Midland and finances oil projects. Charles Younger, another best friend, was a high school football teammate and my roommate during Medical School. He returned to Midland to practice Orthopedic Surgery. Randy Hiltpold was a software engineer in Silicon Valley. A boy several years behind us in school, George W. Bush, became President of the United States and his brother Jeb became governor of Florida. Johnny Hill became the CEO of Putnam Investments. Mike Marsh starred in basketball at SMU and became the Chief of Staff for the Governor of Mississippi. Knox Nunnally was a defensive end for the University of Texas National Champion football team and then had a distinguished career as an attorney for the famous Vinson, Elkins law firm in Houston.

I am still amazed that so many boys that grew up in our windblown, dusty, transient, ugly town became so successful in life. It has taken me many years of life and becoming a parent and grandparent to reach the conclusion that it was OUR parents that made it happen. My parents grew up during the Great Depression and were not able to attend college. They had to work to support their families, either on their farm or as sales clerks in department stores. None of their eight siblings attended college but three of my four uncles fought in WWII. The fourth was eleven years old in 1941. They all survived and returned to Texas.

Given my parents lack of exposure to higher education one might question their attitude about sending my brother Wayne and me to college. But I can state without any doubt that it was a GIVEN that we would be good students and they would make it possible that we could attend any college or University that would accept us. We were the reason they worked so hard and our success was the most important goal of their lives.

I like to think I understand why they chose to build their home at the end of Kansas Street. It sent a message to my brother Wayne and me that we were there to stay. We would not be moving from one oil town to another across the West. And our new home was not just next to a vacant lot. That land was Wilderness and nothing had ever been built on it. It was mesquite bushes and sand dunes and tumbleweeds and horned toads and fire ants. We could dig for arrowheads and practice shooting  reptile game with bows and arrows. We could build tumbleweed forts and fight the Indians and still hear Mom’s call for lunch. Our home included a peculiar three foot fence built with the same flagstone as the house that extended from the house to the street next to vacant lot. I soon realized it was built to prevent sand from inundating our driveway and front yard during dust storms. One of my chores was to brush the sand out of our lawn following a storm. I became very glad that wall was there.

Soon after our home was finished work was begun to construct a new elementary school about a hundred yards across the Wilderness. I started fourth grade at Sam Houston elementary and soon learned how the pioneer spirit copes with adversity. Our future playground was covered with small stones. The Principal decided to solve that problem. He distributed small pails to each student at recess period and devised a competition to determine which class could gather the most stones and throw them on giant piles. These were later removed by workmen with large trucks. Finally, after several weeks, the playgrounds were free of stones and we could play more conventional games at recess.

The proximity of our house to Sam Houston was useful in many ways. I could go home for lunch if I had forgotten my lunch money or just had a bad day.  Mom and Dad could walk over and watch our flag football games or attend other school events. The most important benefit was that our home became the place to bring friends to play after school. Soon we had a half size pool table in the garage. Eventually, Dad ignored architectural considerations and built us a basketball goal on the garage roof so we could play on the driveway.

North of Sam Houston Elementary was Memorial Stadium where many football games were played including night games. I thought that could present a problem but I quickly learned that Mom and Dad enjoyed the excitement, crowd roars and music generated during the games. Dad had been an outstanding football player in High School for the Thornton Tigers and may have been able to attend Texas A&M on a football scholarship but the Depression made that impossible. He remained a football fan for life. He would often fall asleep at night listening to a football game on his bedside radio. He especially liked the LSU Tigers when they had a terrific defense nicknamed the “Chinese Bandits.”

A few years after we moved into our new home Wayne was playing halfback for the Midland Bulldogs in that stadium and several years after that I followed the tradition and played quarterback and safety for the Midland team. A few years before we played a Midland boy suffered a broken neck during a game and was paralyzed for life. I know our parents must have worried that Wayne and I might have a serious injury but they let us make the decision on whether or not to play. We both damaged our knees but those were thrilling, unforgettable times that we will never forget.

Midland and other towns in West Texas had segregated schools.

Black students attended Carter High School and the Carter teams played in Memorial Stadium. Their games were great to watch because the players were often very good and very fast and somewhat unorthodox. It wasn’t unusual to see a triple reverse or multiple laterals after a completed pass. Even more entertaining than the game was the Carter Band and cheerleaders. They did not patronize the traditional fight songs or “Go Team Go” cheers but preferred rock and roll music such as “Shake, Rattle, and Roll” and “Roll Over, Beethoven.”

 Looking to the west from our house between Sam Houston Elementary and Memorial stadium over the Wilderness we could clearly see a huge building that was the First Baptist Church. The Church faced south and was crowned with a large dome that resembled the famous Duomo of the Cathedral in Florence, Italy. My parents were not inclined to attend church but faithfully delivered Wayne and I every week to the First Baptist Church for Sunday School. I eventually became acquainted with our Pastor, Dr. Lester Morris. I had the pleasure of going on a water skiing trip with him and a church group to Lake Thomas, a muddy lake 90 miles away near Snyder, Texas. Lester did not ski but spent the day fishing wearing chest high fishing boots. The rest of us were desperately trying to stay on our skis once someone related that if you fell anywhere near the mesquite branches sticking out of the water you would likely be attacked by water moccasins.

Several months later I chose to be baptized in the Church. Baptism was conducted in a large water tank in the main chapel which was revealed by opening two large sliding doors above the choir. As I walked down the few steps into the tank to be baptized by Reverend Morris I almost collapsed in laughter because as I was about to be soaking wet I saw that Rev. Morris was wearing his chest high fishing boots.

My parents had built our Midland home on a site close to the institutions and symbols they wanted to be important to us. Whether they planned it that way we will never know. Our family thrived there and it remained our home until Dad died suddenly on December 31, 1997. Mother had died suddenly in the kitchen preparing breakfast ten years earlier.

Many changes occurred in our neighborhood after Wayne and I left. Mom adopted a passion for china painting. She had her own kiln to fire the china and produced dozens of beautiful pieces. She distributed many of the plates, dishes , sets of pitchers with cups and paintings to family and friends. Dad had always enjoyed hunting and began to engage in shooting competitions. He learned to load his own bullets, assembled a small arsenal of rifles and traveled to many shooting meets.He helped build the Permian Basin Rifle Club target site southeast of Midland and even invested in the Shilen Rifle Company which made superior stainless steel barrels. He not only became a successful competitor he made dozens of friends across the Southwest.

The Wilderness became a baseball field and practice area and is now a green field.  Midland built a new large stadium complex northwest of the city and now Memorial Stadium is only used for practices and public jogging and a place where old football players can go to rekindle memories of their glory days. Most of the neighborhood homes are basically the same. My favorite is the home of an oil tycoon big game hunter who planted an elephant tusk on his front lawn to use as a stand for his mailbox.

There were no trees on our property when we moved there.  During the 45 years the Hansons lived at 1702 West Kansas Street many peach and pecan trees, poplars and mimosas were planted and grew to be tall

and strong and fruitful. The same could be said of my brother and myself. In many ways, it will always be our home.

I don’t believe Smokey ever caught a bird. It was not for lack of trying as no sparrow was allowed to perch on our lawn if Smokey was awake. It took me many years to realize it was not his role in life to catch birds. He was a small cocker spaniel blessed with jet black long hair and a puff of white on his chest which led to his name. Somewhere in his DNA his genetic code programmed him not to catch birds but to flush them so that hunters could do the catching.

Our family had moved from a farm in Bowie, Texas in the mid-1940s to urban Dallas, Texas. Dad had been transferred to the head office in the big city and all our lives were radically changed. We lived in a brick house on Centenary Lane with a small back yard enclosed by a chain link fence where Smokey was confined. It must have been a culture shock for a dog that grew up running in the unrestrained freedom of the country life. Only the birds that visited our yard provided a reminder for him of being able to pursue other life forms as far as the eye could see.

Our Dad was also not comfortable in Dallas and not just because of our new home in suburbia. He was born and raised on a cotton farm near Thornton, Texas begun by his grandfather, Rasmus Hansen, in the 1870s when he arrived from Denmark. Dad had left the farm after high school because as he said “there has to be a better way to make a living.” He later chose a way of life suited to his adventurous spirit. He went into the oil business. He started at the bottom as a roustabout, then a roughneck and a driller and eventually became a partner in the Fryer and Hanson Drilling Company. They operated drilling rigs in Louisiana, Pennsylvania, New Mexico and increasingly in the Permian Basin in West Texas.

Dad was eager to leave the confines of Dallas and when the opportunity came he happily moved his family to Midland, the “Tall City,” which had a few buildings over ten stories but could be seen from thirty miles over the flat West Texas plains. I imagine the only being happier than Dad to leave Dallas for barren, hot, windy, sandy Midland was Smokey. We soon built a house next to an area of sand dunes and mesquite shrubs that had never been altered by human hands. Smokey was again free to roam and hunt and return home for dinner in a dish.

A favorite activity for Dad and his two sons was dove hunting. It was not only a challenging sport it usually resulted in wrapping a strip of bacon around the plucked birds for a backyard barbeque. On one memorable dove hunting adventure Dad, my brother Wayne and I decided to take Smokey along.

Our pickup truck was an aging Ford that would now be referred to as vintage. We couldn’t risk putting Smokey in the bed of the truck so he got to ride in the already crowded cabin with the three of us. He was always nervous on car rides until he determined that we were not on the way to the Vet. When we passed that point his eyes changed from a dull brown to a brightness we seldom saw. He was on his way to an adventure and he knew it. When we left the town limits his nose began to twitch furiously as he picked up smells from the natural world that he never got in the city. We were on the way into the unknown.

There is very little natural surface water in West Texas. The great Big Spring forty miles east of Midland was known to the Comanche Indians, the Spanish explorers, the Texas Rangers and eventually the pioneers as the only reliable water source within sixty miles in any direction. That all changed when the early ranchers did the first drilling in West Texas. They drilled for water and connected windmills (usually made in Chicago no less) to bring up the water, store it in tanks and troughs for the cattle and eventually into small ponds. These ponds provided water for all types of fowl and were the sites for the best dove hunting.

Dad knew many of the ranchers in West Texas because he met them during drilling lease negotiations and contracts which often made them rich. These ranching families such as the Scarboroughs, Faskins, Cowdens and Midkiffs among many others had bought large tracts of almost worthless land to scratch out a living raising cattle. Many became fabulously wealthy when “black gold” was discovered under that land. Our dove hunts at the windmill ponds were arranged by Dad with the owners of the properties.

We arrived in the early afternoon at our hunting site. By this time, Smokey was in a frantic state. His eyes were darting in several directions at once, his tongue protruded to almost touch his chest and his body trembled with uncontrollable excitement. As our pickup pulled to a stop, Smokey reached his limit of control. He broke free of my grasp and jumped out of the open window sailing six or seven feet with his long black ears sticking out from his head. When he landed on the hard dirt we all knew at once that he was hurt. He was producing a high-pitched squeal and subsequent whimper that none of us had ever heard. Smokey was trying to walk but was unable to put any weight on his right front paw without making that awful sound. Everyone thought he had broken his leg. We took turns holding and trying to comfort him. He seemed to relax in our arms as we decided to go back to town to the Vet after all. But a few minutes later he was much better and we concluded we could hunt birds for an hour or so and still have time to take him back for medical care later in the afternoon.

We spread out around the pond and crouched down behind mesquite and brush waiting for the doves to appear. We left Smokey on a bed of grass and he seemed comfortable. Doves usually approach the ponds from the north riding the wind. They can achieve great speed and resemble little missiles in the air. Depending on their speed, the hunter must aim several feet in front of them in order to make a hit. This requires skill and it is a cause for celebration when a bird falls from the sky. I had just shot my first bird of the day and started to get up out of my brush blind to fetch it when I saw a black streak out of the corner of my eye. Imagine my shock when that black streak turned into Smokey running full speed after the fallen dove. He had no limp! He had no pain! He had only the joy of the hunt and the return to his natural life.

I was amazed. As young people now say, it was Awesome. But the really remarkable thing is that as soon as he saw me emerge from behind my blind,

He screeched to a halt and began to limp on his right paw! It went that way for the rest of the afternoon. When he thought no one was looking he would run as freely as the birds he was chasing. If any of us were in sight, the pronounced limp would mysteriously appear followed by the appropriate petting by some relieved hunters.

The three of us got our limit of doves that afternoon and loaded our shotguns and game and our quasi-injured dog for the return home. Smokey usually wanted to stick his head out the window to savor the new world he was in but not this time. He curled up in my lap and quickly fell sound asleep, one tired dog. With his twitches and jerks I imagined he was dreaming of his big day. When we got home it was dark but the lights were on. We placed Smokey on the driveway and he ran up the steps to greet mother as if nothing but fun had ever happened.

Baseball has been known as “America’s National Pastime” for many years and this was certainly true in Midland, Texas, in the 1950’s. Of course,this applied only to the summer in Texas because otherwise football was everything. Television had not reached into West Texas at that time but radio was our medium that kept us connected to the world.  Not only did we listen to programs such as Amos and Andy, the Shadow, and Captain Midnight, we were consistently tuned to the Mutual Broadcasting Corporation for baseball games.  The announcer for these games was often Gordon McClendon, who billed himself as the “Old Scotsman.” When he broadcast games they were always exciting  filled with the drama of near home runs, close plays at home plate and feats of superb pitching with blazing fastballs and wicked curves.  Only years later did I learn that he received only the bare essentials of the game on a ticker tape and embellished the dramatic details in a studio far removed from where the game was being played.

Nevertheless, I and most of my friends were avid fans and memorized many of the statistics of  major league baseball such as the team standings, players batting averages, and pitchers’ earned run averages. For some unknown reason I chose as my favorite team the Cleveland Indians. I don’t think I knew where Cleveland was located but I learned everything I could find about their players and records. I still remember a group of their pitchers known as “The Big Four.” They were Early Wynn, Bob Lemon, Mike Garcia, and Bob Feller.  In 1954 Cleveland won 111 games but lost the World Series to the New York Giants. They were swept four games to none. I was depressed for weeks.

My first memory of playing baseball was playing catch with my brother Wayne.  He is four years older than me and I remember wondering if it was possible to break a bone in your hand trying to catch a fastball. Later I realized playing with Wayne helped me become a much better player than many boys my age. I learned this when I started to play Little League baseball.  My team was sponsored by a heavy equipment company and we were dubbed the Bulldozers. We were not called Bulls or Dozers or losers but Bulldozers. Other teams in the league had normal names of Braves, Cubs, and Indians all used by major league teams. I don’t think any other team in the history of sports was ever named Bulldozers. Maybe the name was good for us because we tried harder and won our league that year. Our coach picked me to be a pitcher and when not pitching, the catcher. I thought this was great because I was constantly handling the ball and never bored during the slow paced game. Many of my teammates became great friends and remain friends today, sixty years later.

After Little League most of my friends started the next level of summer baseball known then as Pony League. In the summer of 1957 a teammate named Bill Munn invited me to fly with him and his father to St. Louis to watch the St. Louis Cardinals.  His father, Hugh Munn, worked for the Magcobar Mud Corporation.  This company  employed Alvin Dark in Louisiana during the baseball off season. Most players in professional sports at that time did not make enough salary from playing and needed to work during the winter to supplement their income. The manager of the Louisiana branch of Macgobar Mud had become good friends with Mr. Dark and arranged for us to see the Cardinals play a double header and meet Alvin Dark and many other players.

Alvin Dark was an outstanding football and baseball player for Louisiana State University and Southwestern Louisiana Institute. He was drafted by the Boston Braves and in 1948 was  selected as the Major League Baseball Rookie of the year and was third in the voting for Most Valuable Player. In 1949 he was traded to the New York Giants where he became a great player and was the captain of the Giants team that defeated the Cleveland Indians in the World Series in 1954! In June 1956 he was traded to the St. Louis Cardinals.

We flew to St. Louis in the company airplane which was an adventure in itself. Flying in a small plane in the Midwest during summer was like being on a prolonged roller coaster ride

To meet famous major league baseball players and watch games in Busch Stadium in St. Louis was a dream for me. The dream was interrupted by rain during the first game of our doubleheader. While waiting for the infield to dry large clouds of steam rose from the field. Bill and I agreed we had never felt such humidity in West Texas. We noticed other fans coped with the conditions by drinking large amounts of Busch Bavarian beer. Even many children in the stands were sporting beer foam mustaches. We limited ourselves to the hot dogs.

After the games we were taken down into the clubhouse and introduced to Mr. Dark and many other players. They were very friendly and teased us about when we were going to be drafted and where we were going to school.

That evening we had dinner in a restaurant owned by Stan Musial, the Cardinals all star first baseman who was eventually chosen to be in the Baseball Hall of Fame.  Earlier when we were leaving the clubhouse, Mr. Dark gave Bill and myself two baseballs that he said were signed by every member of the team.  It was several years before I realized that one ball was signed by the 1957 St. Louis Cardinals team but the other ball was signed by that 1954 New York Giants team that defeated my Cleveland Indians in the World Series. I decided to trade in the Indians and adopted the Cardinals and the Giants as my favorite teams. I still have these balls today.

In 1962 the New York Giants moved to San Francisco. In 1975 we followed them and moved to the San Francisco Bay Area.

The sound of water splashing jolted me awake. I quickly realized it was nighttime and our car was in the middle of a large river. My Dad was driving and didn’t seem very concerned when I asked him what was happening. He laughed as he told me we were on a concrete bridge that often was under a foot of water when the river was running high.

He had picked me up in Abilene, Texas after the Midland High School football game. I had not been able to play due to a knee injury and the coach had given his permission for Dad to take me to our new hunting lease near the small town of Junction, Texas for the opening day of deer season. It was early November in 1957. My brother Wayne was coming up from Houston to join us.

 We had been deer hunting before on various day leases without much success but this year things were going to be different. Dad had leased the ranch of a man named Bob Neale for the entire hunting season. He had purchased a used small gray trailer home and installed it near a ranch house that  had been abandoned many years ago. There was an old windmill behind the house which still pumped water into an above ground tank and with some hose connections provided our new hunting lodge with running water. It was many years later that I climbed a ladder to inspect the top of the water tank and discovered a healthy growth of algae scum floating on the reservoir.

Electricity was also available from wiring that had been serving the ranch house decades earlier but telephone service had probably never been connected. It was strange to be parked in front of the ranch house that probably had not seen any inhabitants for at least thirty years. Our little trailer brought life and warmth to the small hill that provided an expansive view over the Texas Hill County. We couldn’t see another light in any direction and it must have been five miles to another dwelling. We never heard a sound made by another human being except for an occasional airplane overhead or, of course, rifle shots when hunting started. The silence was something new to all of us that stayed at the ranch. Our sense of hearing became much more acute and we found that our speech naturally became more subdued. 

By far the most astounding natural feature of the ranch was the night sky. With essentially no competing lights and long before any air pollution reached the area we found the moon and stars were incredibly bright. The constellations seemed so close it was apparent how before electricity the stars were much more a part of our ancestors’ lives. It is little wonder that these brilliant objects in the sky almost demanded previous generations to name them, write myths about them and eventually learn to navigate by them.

Dad had obtained a Jeep for the ranch that looked new but was the topless style I had seen in WWII movies. This Jeep was built tough and  could have survived the war. It not only crawled up the rough roads carved out of the sides of mesas by cedar cutters hundreds of times but over following years it was also subjected to driving lessons for multiple grandchildren trying to learn how to drive a stick shift. It was our shared opinion that if you could master that rigid box of a gear shift you could drive anything.

My first morning at the new ranch I was awakened in the dead of night by Dad telling me it was time to go hunting. There was not a sliver of light on the eastern horizon and I thought there must be some kind of mistake. He informed me we must be at our hunting blinds before daybreak because the deer like to start the day early. After a quick breakfast, I started to get dressed in all the clothing that would have protected me in the frozen North. First was the long underwear, then two pairs of wool socks, a thick pair of gabardine pants, a long sleeved tee shirt, a wool shirt, a padded vest, a dull green parka with a hood that was probably surplus from the Korean War, green gloves and, of course, a high-top pair of hunting boots with leather laces. Looking a little like the Pillsbury dough boy, I climbed into the passenger seat of the Jeep and waited for the adventure to begin.

The Texas Hill Country around Junction is a little bit of a misnomer. The “hills’ look like glaciers from the last ice age sliced the top off of them  leaving mesas several hundred feet high and with  often very steep sides. The tops of the mesas are very flat and excellent deer hunting territory.  Dad was able to gradually coax the Jeep up a glorified trail known as a road to some to our hunting ground. It was still pitch black when we reached our destination. I unloaded with my rifle, binoculars, blanket, thermos of coffee, and a seating cushion and took my position behind a small cedar bush. Dad wished me good luck and told me he would be back to pick me up when it was time and not to leave this spot. I don’t remember asking him what time would that be but later I wished I had. I do remember it was cold. I could not have been sitting in the darkness for more than five minutes when it registered that my feet were cold. When I exhaled I could feel a cold mist gather on my chin. I looked through my light gathering rifle scope to see if I could see anything to no avail. Later, when it finally started to become light, I found the scope was completely fogged from my breath.

Long before light arrived, I experienced the excitement of the day. It was so still and silent that the first sign I had that I shared that mesa with another living thing was the loud click of a hoof on a rock. That was followed by many dull thuds and the sound of hide brushing on bushes. I had no idea how far these sounds had traveled but I could tell they were getting louder and that could only mean an animal was moving toward me.  I wondered if it would be legal to shoot a deer soon and realized since it was still dark it would be considered night hunting and that was definitely not allowed. The sounds started to get much louder and I wondered if I could claim self-defense. I still couldn’t see anything through my rifle scope or binoculars but the continuing sounds indicated the animal was getting really close. Finally I thought I could detect something moving about ten yards away from me. It looked like something big but clumsy. I had not wanted to use my flashlight because it would possibly scare a deer and also be illegal but I could not resist identifying what was coming at me. The beam of light landed not on a buck deer but on the biggest black cow I had ever seen. A large metal tag attached to his ear shined back at me. I’m certain he had never seen a creature as strange as me and as his bovine eyes widened he released a bellow that could probably be heard in downtown Junction. He wasted no time in making a complete turn and returned to wherever he had come from as fast as his hulking body could take him.

The rest of the morning was rather boring after that encounter. I saw a few deer but none of the trophy variety. Dad finally picked me up in midmorning and we shared a good laugh about my big game hunting of one of Bob Neale’s cattle.

We’ll never know if our parents planned our Junction hunting ranch to become a focus of gathering for our family. But we do know that after that inauspicious beginning the ranch experience grew  to include memorable experiences for my family and Wayne’s family over many years. I still marvel at the wonderful holiday meals created by our mother with help from Wayne’s wife Nancy and girls Sandi and Brenda as well as my wife Lois. They could produce a wonderful Christmas or Thanksgiving turkey dinner (often with a wild turkey from the ranch) in a tiny kitchen in the larger trailer house that was added in later years when our extended family outgrew the original version. Our daughter Leslie became friends with her cousins Sandi, Brenda, and Greg at the ranch. They all enjoyed an outing in the Jeep to load corn in the feeders near the blinds or just drive around the country alert for any game that might appear.

 My most memorable hunting afternoon occurred when I hunted from a tall tree blind in an area we seldom visited. Mom and Dad were stationed nearby in a blind where they could see me.  A large eight point buck wandered by and I was able to bring it down. He was the best trophy deer I ever shot. Dad later surprised me with the mounted deer head which I still treasure.

 My major pleasure in life at the ranch was never really to kill game. We donated many of the deer to a local boys ranch where they consumed the meat and used the hides and bones for various crafts. We often had the meat processed into sausage or hamburger for our own use. In later years we all enjoyed hunting for turkey because they were more challenging to take and very delicious to eat. My major pleasure was the experience of the hunting ranch itself. To live in many ways like our ancestors did with our extended family living and working together for the common good was a wonderful learning experience. We learned how resourceful our parents were. We recognized that they had survived the very difficult times of the Great Depression and World War II. They could cope with anything after raising two boys when they often weren’t sure where their next meal was coming from. Our Dad had left a non-promising cotton farm near Thornton, Texas worked by his grandfather and father since 1870 and took a chance in the oil business. He never went to college due to the Depression but he lived a full and interesting life and acquired a lot of wisdom along the way. He started as a roughneck on a drilling rig and worked his way up to be a full partner in the Fryer and Hanson Drilling Company. He never forgot how to somehow obtain running water, use a butane stove, grade a caliche road, move a rig to a difficult location, repair a broken down Jeep or fix a windmill. He was able to show us a lot of that wisdom by acquiring the hunting lease and making it a magnet for family gatherings for almost twenty five years.

 Our mother also never went to college but as a teenager left her large family in Bellville Texas to work in a S.H. Kress department store in Houston. Her love of her family was never more apparent than her support of her husband, sons, and grandchildren at the ranch. She could prepare wonderful meals for ten people on a tiny stove in a second hand trailer house and enjoy every minute of it. She enjoyed card games during the day and spirited games of Scrabble late into the night with the girls after the hunters had gone to bed. She never complained about her hair or the lack of a shower while doing her best to see that everyone had a good time. She welcomed guests that Dad, Wayne or I would invite to the ranch and make them feel welcome even though it meant more work for herself. Her unselfish nature and loving spirit was best appreciated in the stark reality of life at the ranch.

Thirty years have passed since our shared life at the hunting ranch ended and I am so grateful that it was part of my life. I’m glad my wife and daughter were able to share a part of it with me because the experience had such a profound effect on me. I admired the courage of the settlers who scratched out a living on that rocky land in order to be free and be their own boss. One year Mr. Neale found some Indian artifacts on the ranch that he thought were Comanche. It reminded me of how brave the pioneers were to risk life on the frontier in their isolated cabins. I chose the profession of medicine partly because I wanted to be independent. I was willing to risk my exposure to contagious diseases, occasionally angry patients and family members, and deranged mentally ill in order to help people live better lives. I treasure the memory of our family experiences at the ranch. Our family is now spread across the United States and we are not able to see each other as much as we would like. I often wish our generation had developed something like the hunting ranch to bring us together more often for shared adventure.

I knew we were in trouble when our taxi pulled into the airport in Reynosa. The small concrete terminal looked like an abandoned Greyhound bus station which was pathetic even by Mexican border town standards. But the really shocking thing was the clear view we had of several wrecks of airplanes that had been pushed off the runways probably over several years and were well on their way to rusted junk. The planes were the DC-3 type that we had not seen since watching World War II movies. Shortly after we checked in our plane scheduled for Merida, Yucatan arrived. It was also a DC-3 which had a completely black cowling on one engine that could only have been due to a previous fire.

My friend John Looney had invited me to join him on an adventure to explore Mayan ruins in Yucatan. We had just graduated from Southwestern Medical School of the University of Texas in Dallas and had a month before starting our internships.  John had explored southern Mexico the previous summer and was enthralled by the huge ruins of Teotihuacan near Mexico City. I had previously enjoyed a train trip with another friend from Presidio, Texas, to Los Mochis and Mazatlan through the famous Copper Canyon. I had also been to Mexico City and Teotihuacan. We were both Texans who felt we knew Mexico well except for the Yucatan peninsula and looked forward to exploring the remains of the Mayan civilization including ruins that had not been restored.

In 1968 there were not many airline flights to Yucatan.  Cancun was a small fishing village that was years away from becoming the megaresort it is today. Merida, the capital of Yucatan, was a small city that had not yet endured the onslaught of tourism.  We found a flight from Reynosa, a small town just across the Rio Grande from McAllen, Texas, to Merida once a week on a Mexican domestic airline called Aeronaves at a price even poor medical students could afford. We really did not think much about safety at that time and assumed getting there would be part of the fun.

We asked the Aeronaves clerk at the counter what had happened to the engine of our plane and he cheerfully explained that there had been a fire but that now there was “no problema.”  We climbed up a small ladder into the cabin at the back of the tilted plane and noticed we were the only “gringos” on board. We had been airborne about an hour and were enjoying our first cerveza when I observed that we were not flying over the Gulf of Mexico as expected but were hugging the Mexican coastline toward Tampico and Vera Cruz.  When we asked the flight attendant why we were going that route she smiled and slowly explained in broken English that we were taking the long way around. The rest of the flight John and I were staring at the engines expecting one of them would burst into flames at any minute.

Merida is a charming Spanish colonial town which would have been very pleasant except for the intense June heat. Fortunately, Dr. Roger Unger, with whom I had done medical research the previous summer, had suggested we contact a physician friend of his in Merida. He introduced us to the underground city which had been carved out of the limestone rock and provided cool restaurants and night life.  He was able to provide us with information about our exploration that we could not have obtained from our guidebooks.

Uxmal

Most expeditions would select for their vehicle to enter the jungle a Jeep or preferably a Land Rover or Suburban but given the limited selection of rental vehicles at the Merida airport and our limited resources we started our adventure in a Volkswagen Bug.  We jokingly reasoned that if it broke down it would be the easiest vehicle to push. More importantly, it would be the least attractive vehicle to steal. Finally, after buying a variety of rations and some extra gasoline, we left Merida for the Mayan ruin of Uxmal. After a short drive we arrived at Uxmal in the midst of the dense jungle. No modern buildings surrounded the ruins that were over a thousand years old. There were only a few people at the site and most of them were standing in the shade of the awning of a soda stand.

The most outstanding building of Uxmal is an unusually tall and steep temple topped by a small structure apparently used by priests for various rituals, possibly even human sacrifices. The early Spanish explorers had a difficult time translating the Mayan language. The site of Uxmal was named when the Spanish asked the local natives what it was called and they replied “Oxmal” which in Mayan means three times built and referred to the fact that several temples were built over the existing temple structures. Another possibility is “Uchmal” which means “what is to come, the future.” The main temple itself was named by the Spanish the House or the Pyramid of the Magician which apparently was based on a Mayan myth that the temple was built overnight by a dwarf who was the son of a witch. Another group of buildings with multiple doors and extensive carvings was dubbed the Nunnery quadrangle although it is highly unlikely the name was accurate.

Uxmal was in better condition than many other Mayan sites because much of it was built with well cut stones set into a core of concrete not relying on plaster to hold the buildings together. The Maya architecture here is considered matched only by that of Palenque in Guatemala in elegance and beauty. There is in addition to many buildings a large ball court for playing the Mesoamerican ballgame.  It has been determined that an inscription indicates the ball court was dedicated in 901 A.D. by a ruler named Chan Chak K’ak’nal Ajaw.

John and I were able to reach the top of the Pyramid of the Magician and had a magnificent view of the surrounding jungle which was filled with dozens of mounds probably Mayan structures that had been completely overgrown. Also visible was a beautiful Spanish style building with a swimming pool! We carefully descended the temple steps and discovered the beautiful structure was the Hacienda Uxmal, a lodge complete with a restaurant, lovely rooms or casitas, and beautiful lush gardens. We had not expected such luxury in the jungle but we adjusted quickly.

Into the Unknown

After thoroughly exploring Uxmal, John and I decided to seek a Mayan site that had not been cleared and reconstructed as our next destination. We found a site close to Uxmal that was mentioned on a comprehensive list of sites but not in any tourist guidebooks. It wasn’t easy to find but after several dead ends on dirt roads that were poorly marked we reached our goal.  There were no signs of people or modern buildings. The ruins were almost completely covered with vegetation of all kinds but in between several root systems we could see beautifully carved stone walls with frequent depictions of the rain god Chaac with two headed serpents serving as masks.

During this time there was an undeclared war being fought between the Mexican army and Mayan ruins robbers. The sheer number of Mayan ruins made it impossible to protect all of them, particularly sites off the beaten path. We had read reports that soldiers and thieves had been killed at sites where looting of Mayan artifacts had been interrupted.  As John and I congratulated ourselves for finding an undisturbed site, we heard the unmistakable sound of a machete clearing jungle growth. We quickly ducked behind a stone wall and realized the chopping noise was coming from a part of the jungle between us and our VW bug. Our worst fears materialized when a dark skinned man with a bushy mustache wearing a large sombrero, sporting cartridge belts across his chest and carrying a large rifle as well as a machete, stepped out into the clearing. He projected an image that reminded me of pictures of Pancho Villa. Following him was another man who could have been his twin. My eyes met John’s and told each other these guys were not archeologists. We whispered softly that it was time for us to seek the safety of the jungle when suddenly a third man emerged behind his companions. To our great relief he was a gringo who looked as exhausted and forlorn as we felt. We decided to take a chance and jumped up to welcome them to our little part of the jungle. They were as surprised to see us as we had been to hear them but not nearly as frightened. Soon we learned that they were on a jaguar hunt and had little interest in us or the Maya. As we crawled back into the VW we agreed that we were going to visit only well-developed sites for the remainder of the trip.

Chichen Itza

Chichen Itza is the best known and most visited of all the Mayan ruins. The largest and most beautiful building is a square tall pyramid known as the Temple of Kukulcan. Many other structures surround this temple including a beautifully reconstructed ball court with intricate fascinating hieroglyphs. Following our trip, we were surprised to learn that Mayan scholars had been able to decipher these hieroglyphs and determine that it was a form of written language. We thought they were merely decorative and did not suspect they contained information regarding Mayan history, rulers and important events. The earliest hieroglyphic date found at Chichen Itza is equivalent to 832 AD and the last known date is 998 AD. We used a copy of a book written by Ambassador John Lloyd Stephens in 1846 titled “Incidents of Travel in Yucatan.” Frederick Catherwood illustrated the book with lithographs showing the pyramid covered with abundant vegetation on all four sides.

In 1924 the Carnegie Institution for Science received permission from the Mexican government to explore and restore the ruins of Chichen Itza. Working with Mexican archaeologists the expedition over the next decade discovered the temple had been constructed over a much older pyramid and contained human remains and a box with coral, obsidian and turquoise encrusted objects in two large interior chambers. In one chamber archaeologists found a red jaguar statue with jade inlays for spots and eyes as well as two parallel rows of human bones set into the back wall. John and I were able to ascend the pyramid and explore the inner chambers and statues but in 2006 the Mexican National Institute of Anthropology and History instituted a policy that prevents tourists from climbing the pyramid or go inside their chambers

The Yucatan peninsula has very little surface water with no rivers crossing it. Many scholars have concluded the Mayan civilization failed due to prolonged drought and crop failure. At Chichen Itza however there are two large, natural sink holes called cenotes which open into underground water. These are very large and deep and presumably would have supplied ample water for the area even in times of severe drought. One of the cenotes was known as the Sacred Cenote. The Maya sacrificed objects and human beings into the cenote as a form of worship to the Mayan rain god Chaac. In 1894 the United States Consul to Yucatan purchased the Hacienda Chichen and the ruins from its private owner. Edward Herbert Thompson dredged the Sacred Cenote from 1904 to 1910 and recovered artifacts of gold, copper and carved jade as well as Mayan cloth and wooden weapons. He sent the majority of the findings to the Peabody Museum at Harvard University. Two years after our trip I was able to view these objects in Boston.

We also discovered the Hacienda Chichen which was built by the Spanish in 1523. The main house or “Casco” was built near the water supply and was built by recycling Mayan stones. Some can still be seen on the main buildings west façade. This hacienda has a large room with a tall ceiling and reminds one of the large lodges at our national parks such as Yellowstone Old Faithful Lodge. One night after John and I had finished dinner the usual church-like subdued conversation in the Hacienda great room was shattered by a loud argument. We quickly went to the source of the shouting voices hoping it was regarding the still unresolved issue of why Mayan civilization receded around 1100 A.D. Soon we learned the agitated participants were British botanists debating the identity of some plants and flowers they had encountered during the day and had nothing to do with the Maya.

Isla Mujeres

We had enjoyed our exploration of Chichen Itza but it was June and intensely hot. John and I agreed the time had come to change objectives and explore the clear waters of the Caribbean. Somehow we learned about an island called Isla Mujeres just off the present resort of Cancun. The fact the name of the island means Island of Women may have had some influence on our decision to go there. We drove to the coast and found a ferry to take us over to Isla Mujeres. We discovered a beautiful little island with very few tourists or development. Water had to be shipped from the mainland since there was no fresh water on the island. We slept in hammocks and enjoyed the soft breezes while eating all types of seafood including wonderful langoustines. Although we learned that the Spanish had named the island because of the large number of Mayan statues honoring the goddess of childbirth and medicine we soon found some real women to keep us company. A Mexican named Miguel who owned a scuba diving business persuaded us to go diving off a local reef in unbelievably clear water after a thirty minute course in scuba gear. We never got more than ten feet deep so we didn’t think we were being too foolhardy. The dive was fantastic with large schools of brilliantly colored fish of all shapes and sizes.

We had asked Miguel before diving about the presence of sharks in the area we were going to and were reassured by him that there were no sharks around Isla Mujeres and that was “no problema.” After such a great day diving we decided to ask our female friends to join us for another diving adventure the next day.  I went in the water first and was literally immersed in a huge school of fish when suddenly the fish parted revealing an opening in the school that was filled by a shark that must have been six feet long.  My first reaction was to get next to a shelf of coral and hope the shark was more interested in the fish than me. After a few very long minutes he casually swam away without making any effort to have a morning snack of either of us.  Returning to the boat as quickly as possible I announced that we had company today that was ruining the neighborhood. I confided privately to John that our company was one of those things that were said by Miguel to be “no problema.” John insisted on checking it out himself, strapped on his gear and rolled off the boat. With some apprehension I watched his air bubbles steadily progressing toward the reef when suddenly they came to a halt. Soon the telltale bubbles indicated John was returning to the boat at a much faster pace than when he was leaving. He confirmed there was a “leetle problema.” We informed Miguel we wanted to go to another diving area where there were no fish over one foot long. Before leaving Isla Mujeres, we found a small maritime museum that exhibited a large number of mounted shark jaws. My Spanish was good enough to read that the specimens were caught “one mile east of Isla Mujeres,” “two miles south of Isla Mujeres,””one and a half miles north of Isla Mujeres,” and so on.

Homeward Bound?

Our week in Yucatan was almost up and we drove back to Merida where we met our physician friend and shared our experiences in his native land at a wonderful farewell dinner. We shared unusual cuisine of wild turkey, cochinitas pibil, and venado, a local deer species, which were done with a Yucatecan flair not found anywhere else in the country. Early the next morning we returned our faithful VW bus at the airport.  We were feeling pretty good about ourselves until we saw our Aeronaves plane land and taxi toward the terminal. Our moods completely changed when we saw it was the same plane with the black engine! We felt we had cheated death on the flight down on that wretched plane and now in order to get home we were going to have to fight round two. The other passengers were probably too busy with their bags and bundles to even notice that one of the engines was black as night. They filled every seat on the plane and were happily anticipating their flight to Reynosa. If my Spanish had been better I would have been tempted to ask them if they could swim.

The pilot was able to start both engines and I was thrilled to see that neither of them were smoking. I had carefully selected a seat to keep an eye on my friend Blackie. Everything seemed normal as we accelerated down the runway when the airplane suddenly lost speed and came to a complete halt. The pilot turned the plane and seemed to be returning to the terminal. The flight attendant came strolling down the aisle and I was able to ask her if there was a problem. She looked at me with a cheerful smile and addressed me as if I were five years old. Through this broad smile she said “Oh no senor. The pilot said we were not going fast enough to take off” and her smile became even broader when she added “We are going back around to try it again.”

Later I wondered if Aeronaves charged extra for the jungle canopy flight feature. We barely cleared the trees at the end of the runway and must have flown fifty miles before we got ten feet above the treetops. John and I were able to discover several unexplored Mayan sites right below us. I decided to inform several birdwatcher friends of mine when and if we got home that they needed to take this same flight and could probably identify several new species from the comfort of the airplane. When we finally landed in Reynosa I was actually happy to see the wrecked planes that had been pushed off the runway and thrilled that our plane was not one of them.

It was during an after midnight conversation with the charge nurse at the Dallas VA Hospital that I decided to leave Texas. We were alone at the nursing station under a single dim light. Snoring from several patients provided the only background noise as the rest were sound asleep. With my encouragement she was relating her experiences as a nurse during World War II in the South Pacific theatre. She had served in forward combat aid stations on many islands treating countless soldiers and marines who were fighting for their lives. As she talked I started to see her not as a tired sixty year old with a weathered face and dull dyed red hair but as a young, dedicated, vibrant woman who would work trying to save young men until she dropped from exhaustion.

It was twenty four years after the war mercifully ended and you could still hear the pride she felt in herself, her colleagues and her country. She had taken the challenge and left her home for an unknown future in order to make a difference.

I decided that although I loved my family, my friends and the state where I had lived my entire life attending college and medical school it was time for me to take a challenge and continue my medical training in a new environment where I could grow as a person and hopefully become a better doctor. It was time for me to leave Texas and go to Boston.

The day my internship ended on June 30, 1969, I packed all my belongings in a small U-Haul trailer which I hitched to my Pontiac

LeMans and started East. A good friend accompanied me to Memphis. We arrived as the sun was setting on the Mississippi River and we broke into a rendition of “Ole Man River” to mark the occasion. Many years later I discovered the Crabb branch of my father’s family had left Mississippi and Tennessee and made the same trip across the Mississippi River and Arkansas in 1872 on their way to Thornton, Texas, where my Dad was born forty three years later.

My friend had to leave me in Memphis so I drove the rest of the trip alone. The hours spent driving through Tennessee and Virginia gave me ample time to think about my future. The Vietnam War was raging and I knew there were large protests against it in many cities, including Boston. I had enrolled in the Berry Plan which delayed my entry into the military service until my residency years were completed but then I would be drafted for two years. I assumed I would be sent to Vietnam since all the doctors I worked with at Parkland Hospital in Dallas were being sent to Vietnam presumably because of their trauma experience.

The drive through New York and New England went quickly. When I arrived at Boston City Hospital I expected to check into housing I had arranged months before at the hospital complex. Imagine my surprise when I was told I had arrived too late and all the housing was occupied. I had to locate my own apartment while driving around Boston with my U-Haul trailer.

Boston City Hospital is located in an area called Roxbury which used to be desirable but had deteriorated into an urban ghetto. It was not a location for an apartment. Fortunately, I managed to find a place on Commonwealth Avenue in downtown Boston only a few blocks from the Boston Public Garden. The apartment was on the sixth floor but there was an elevator which was temporarily out of order. Weeks after moving in I learned the Lebanese landlord turned the elevator off near the end and beginning of every month to save it from “wear and tear.” I managed to hire two homeless vagrants to help me carry my gear up six floors. It was later that day while unpacking I realized that my record player and speakers had not made the trip up the stairs.

Boston City Hospital opened in 1864 during the Civil War and served all segments of Boston society. I had chosen it for my residency in Internal Medicine because of its excellent academic and clinical departments and the fact that the clinical services were shared by three medical schools, Boston University, Tufts University, and Harvard. The physical plant looked as if it had not changed much since the turn of the century. Multiple five and six story brick buildings were connected by a series of tunnels which allowed transportation of patients and staff around the ten acre complex especially during the winter months.

I expected the aging facilities but I was shocked to learn that all the patient beds were located in large wards separated only by curtains. There were no intensive care units or private rooms and patients were assigned beds based on availability and not on severity of their condition. The patients also were distributed in the ward without regard to which of the three different medical school staffs were responsible for them.

The confusion produced by this system is best emphasized by the famous incident of a Greek sailor who had been hospitalized for upper gastrointestinal bleeding when his ship docked in Boston harbor. He was admitted for diagnostic studies on the Boston University service.  His bleeding had stopped but he was suspected to have a condition producing hyper-acidity resulting in recurrent stomach ulcer bleeding.

During his first night on the dimly lit ward a critically ill patient being treated with a ventilator was placed in the bed next to him. After less than an hour this patient suffered a cardiac arrest and several doctors and nurses rushed to resuscitate him. During this effort the curtains between beds were pulled back and the sailor witnessed the entire process. The patient died and shortly after the body was removed and the bed cleaned and prepped another critically ill patient was placed in the same bed. During the middle of the night this patient also suffered a cardiac arrest with the same futile resuscitation which was also witnessed by the sailor.

By this time, the sailor was convinced there were evil spirits at work in this hospital and he was wide awake when yet another critically ill patient, also being treated with a ventilator, was placed in his adjacent bed. He of course did not know this ventilator only triggered when the patient was not breathing on his own initiative. During the next few hours the patient was actually improving and the ventilator activity began to slow and eventually stopped. The sailor thought this patient too must have had a cardiac arrest. He jumped out of bed, pulled back the curtain and began chest compressions while screaming for help. A resident from the Harvard service was the first to arrive and not recognizing the patient asked the sailor “What’s wrong with this guy?” The sailor continued with his chest compression and replied in his best broken English “I dunno! I’m a PATIENT here!

I knew that the bad choices Pearl had made would result in her death but I never thought her choices might cost me my life. Pearl was a mid-forties black woman who looked much older. Drug use, poor nutrition, and severe alcohol abuse had aged her much beyond her years. She had developed cirrhosis of the liver and was frequently admitted to Boston City Hospital for severe gastrointestinal bleeding from esophageal varices, which are distended and fragile veins in the esophageal wall. This condition is treated by placing an inflatable tube known as a Sengstaken-Blakemore tube down the mouth next to the bleeding vessels in the distal esophagus. Many interns and residents, including myself, had gained valuable experience in the use of this device in the process of treating Pearl’s many episodes of bleeding.

This treatment is only temporarily effective and partially because Pearl  continued to drink alcohol after she was discharged from the Hospital, she required admission more and more often. During one of these hospitalizations I was called to the Emergency Room to evaluate a patient for admission. Going down the back stairway I met Pearl’s boyfriend who was coming up with a brown paper bag. I had talked to him many times about the absolute necessity for Pearl to stop drinking alcohol. Fearing the worst, I grabbed the bag and found a bottle of whiskey that he was obviously bringing to Pearl. I lost control and smashed the bottle in the stairwell and told him he was one of the reasons Pearl was dying. When  I eventually returned to the ward I found that he had sneaked Pearl out of the hospital after stealing another patient’s robe and slippers.

Several weeks later, we received a call from the Emergency Room to admit a patient with a suspected new seizure disorder. My intern and I went to the ER and to my great surprise the patient to be admitted was Pearl’s boyfriend. He avoided eye contact and when I told him I recognized him he denied that he had ever seen me. I noticed that he had brought a small suitcase with him as if he expected to be admitted. After we reached the Ward we took his history and he described a bizarre number of neurological symptoms that were not consistent with a seizure disorder.

It became obvious to us that in denying he knew me and with a history that was clearly fabricated he must have some other reason than treatment that he wanted to be in the hospital. I asked my intern to perform a spinal tap which was indicated as an evaluation of a neurologic disorder and while this was being set up in the treatment room I called the Boston Coroner’s office. It was no surprise that Pearl had been found dead in her apartment having died of massive bleeding.

I realized why he wanted to be in the hospital. Next I searched his suitcase and found a loaded revolver and a large hunting knife. I waited until the spinal tap had begun and the needle had been placed to inform him not to move or risk the danger of permanent nerve damage. He was lying on his side when I presented his revolver and knife into his field of vision. He did not move but admitted with malice that he had come to kill me and others if he could since we had not been able to save Pearl. I pointed out that Pearl had killed herself with a little help from her friends. We had done all we could to save her and it would do no one any good to transfer any guilt he had to us. I told him I was giving his weapons to the Boston City Police and if anything happened to me or any other member of my team they would know whom to arrest.

We got him some dinner and explained how sorry we were that Pearl had died and wished we could have done more to save her but her disease was too advanced. He gathered up his things and thanked us for all we had done.

I never saw him again.

In August 1971 I began a new chapter in my life. Earlier that summer I had completed my medical residency in Internal Medicine from Boston University Medical Center with a clerkship in Cardiology at the University of California in San Diego. A friend in San Diego introduced me to Lois Buenger who had recently completed a three year tour in the Peace Corps in the Philippines. We started a whirlwind romance that led to our wedding in July in San Antonio, Texas, where I was in basic training for the Army.

I had enrolled in a program called the Berry Plan which allowed me to complete my residency before being drafted into the military. I had expected to be sent to Vietnam since almost all my physician friends with experience in treating trauma patients were sent to the war. It was with complete surprise that I learned by calling the US Army assignment center in the Pentagon that I was being sent to Korea. I thought the Korean War had been over for twenty years but found out there were still 38,000 US personnel there who also needed medical care. I was thrilled to learn I would be stationed in the Korean capital of Seoul (which we dubbed Soul City) and that Lois would be able to join me there. So on a damp night in August at McCord Air Force Base near Seattle, Washington, I boarded a plane with several hundred soldiers, some with full battle gear, bound for the Far East.

My flight to Asia was a charter with Flying Tiger Airlines undoubtedly named after the famous air brigade of Colonel Chennault in Burma and China in World War II. At some point over the Pacific a flight attendant announced our scheduled arrival in Japan and then on to Cam Ranh Bay, Vietnam! This caused quite an uproar since all the soldiers thought they were going to Korea and their orders must have been changed. After a short period of clamor the attendant corrected her error and indicated our plane was headed to Kimpo Airport near Seoul, Korea.

My initial reaction to the knowledge I was being assigned to Korea included a vision that I would be living and working in large tents as depicted in the popular television series M*A*S*H*. Instead our military convoy arrived at a sprawling one story modern hospital designated the 121st Evacuation Hospital. We were then escorted off the base to a modern apartment complex where we would be living.

The apartments were between the Yongsan Garrison and the Han River and were named the Riverside apartments. Koreans have difficulty pronouncing the r letter and often exchange it for an L. The Riverside apartments were therefore known as the Liverside Apartments which in many ways was perfectly appropriate.

There was a problem at the hospital in physician coverage of the emergency room. There were no emergency room specialists at that time and these duties were often performed by the hospital medical staff. There were thirty physicians on the staff and in a bureaucratic fashion the chief medical officer decided that each physician would cover the emergency room one day a month. The problem was that many of the medical staff were non clinical physicians such as radiologists, pathologists, and even psychiatrists who were many years removed from treating medical or surgical problems. This was apparently not considered a serious problem by the hospital administration since all the physicians had attended medical school and should be able to do their part. Concerns that they might not be able to effectively treat a seriously ill patient were dismissed.

The worst fears that this policy might result in disaster were realized one night when the hospital psychiatrist was on duty in the emergency room. A meeting was conducted that night at the American Embassy in Seoul of the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO.) A departing Australian Naval Commander had become quite “sloshed” and made a playful charge at one of the Embassy German Shepherd guard dogs. The dog apparently did not recognize the charge as playful and promptly took a large bite from the retreating Commander’s rear end. Since it was obvious the wound required medical attention he was taken to the 121st.

At first everything seemed to go well with the Commander’s treatment. The psychiatrist apparently avoided inquiring why the Commander would do such a foolish thing and directed the wound be cleaned and dressed. He quite appropriately decided to administer antibiotics to treat possible infection. But he made a crucial mistake by not first inquiring whether the Commander was allergic to penicillin. Almost immediately after receiving the injection he developed anaphylactic shock with a severe drop in blood pressure and a loss of consciousness. The psychiatrist quickly realized what had happened but unfortunately had no idea how to treat this potentially fatal condition.

It was 2:30 in the morning when I got the call that there was a crisis in the hospital and MP jeeps were coming for me. I was almost dressed when I heard the sirens of several jeeps and then saw the flashing red lights. I ran down the stairs and jumped into a jeep and remember that the MPs were all wearing sunglasses. Lights were coming on all around the complex and my last view as we drove away was of Lois on our balcony with a forlorn look that she might never see me again.

Our convoy raced back to the base and when we arrived a few minutes later the Commander was still alive but deeply comatose. He had a heart rhythm but his blood pressure was very low and even difficult to obtain. He was in danger of developing cardiac arrest. We established several IVs and gave him large amounts of fluid as well as multiple doses of epinephrine. Gradually his blood pressure improved but his respirations were shallow so we intubated him and placed him on a ventilator. At this point I was confident that his cardiorespiratory status would stabilize but there was no way of knowing if his prolonged period of very low blood pressure would result in severe brain damage. We informed his associates of his condition and warned them that he might not wake up.

The sun was coming up over Seoul when the Commander began to move. His blood pressure had been stable for hours and his respiratory status had improved so that we had removed his breathing tube. He was becoming more active but his eyes remained tightly closed. His associates and several hospital personnel were crowded around his bed as I started asking “Commander, can you hear me?” No response. We waited a few minutes and I asked again “Commander, can you hear me?” This time his eyes popped wide open. He looked around the room and shouted in a typical Aussie dialect “I’m all right mates! Just put me in a cab and send me home!” A cheer rang out from his room that could be heard throughout the hospital.

Shortly after this near disaster the hospital policy was changed and no longer was the emergency room staffed by physicians who were not in clinical practice. This change meant I would be spending a few more nights in the hospital during my tour of duty in Korea but for some reason, I didn’t mind.

Our classmate Jerry Hanson died on December 8, 2023, from brain bleeding following a fall a few days earlier at his home in Los Gatos, California. His daughter, Leslie Hanson Morrissey (Hanszen 1994), and his wife, Lois Buenger Hanson, were with him at the time. He is also survived by his older brother, Wayne Edward Hanson (Hanszen 1961), Leslie’s husband, Dr. Douglas Morrissey (Wiess 1994), and Leslie and Doug’s three children (Jerry’s grandchildren), Aaron, Shannon, and Christopher Morrissey.

Jerry was known for his dry wit, his friendly, outgoing personality, and his charisma and leadership, culminating in his service as president of Hanszen our senior year. He had been a talented athlete and student at Midland High School in West Texas, and if not for a devastating knee injury his junior year, he might have played quarterback for the Owls—or, perish the thought, some other college team. His sports nickname at Midland High, Killer, indicates just how good he was. He also played clarinet in the Midland High band, a fact I learned only much later.

Tom Sudberry (Baker 1965), who was a good friend of Jerry’s back in their Midland days as well as at Rice, remembers those times in an email: ‘All of us on the Midland Bulldog football team expected to win State with Killer as our quarterback. His injury torpedoed those dreams.’ Tom adds this tribute: ‘In all the years and circumstances that Jerry and I shared, Jerry (without trying) was always the smartest person in the room. And consistently a kind, honest, dependable, and gracious gentleman. I never heard him make a negative comment about anyone.’ 

Albert Kidd recalls another nickname, Big Chief, that was bestowed on Jerry by Tom Sears. (Albert and Tom were Jerry’s Hanszen suitemates for two years.) ‘It fit Jerry perfectly—tall, handsome, proudly erect, a leader on the intramural field, in the classroom, at Hanszen, and in his career as a distinguished cardiologist. Tom died in 2014, the year of our 50th reunion. Next year we will have to celebrate our 60th without Jerry. How we already miss the Big Chief!’

Jerry Alan Hanson was born in Mount Vernon, Illinois on March 8, 1942, to Robert Coleman Hanson and Lou Ellen Hageman Hanson. When he was quite young, the family moved to Midland, where his father worked his way up through the oil business and eventually owned an independent drilling company. At Rice, where I was fortunate enough to be his roommate for three years, Jerry took pre-med courses and majored in economics. When he was studying organic chemistry our junior year, I would sometimes be awakened in the middle of the night to find him sitting up in his bed, eyes wide open but still asleep, reciting carbon-chain formulas out loud. The next morning, he wouldn’t remember the incident.

After Rice, Jerry attended Southwestern Medical School in Dallas, graduating with an M.D. in 1968. Along the way he did summer rotations in psychology in London and in a kidney lab in Madrid. He then served his residency in internal medicine at Boston Community Hospital. He enjoyed his time in Boston, even though his first experience there was disheartening. As he was moving into the apartment he had rented, his car was stolen. A few days later, his landlord said he could find him a replacement car at a good price. When Jerry questioned him, he admitted it would be ‘hot.’ Jerry said, ‘Well, can I get my own car back?’ That ended the conversation.

In spring 1971 Jerry, an ardent traveler, had recently returned from a trip to Machu Picchu when he met Lois Buenger, who also loved to travel and had just finished her third year as a Peace Corps volunteer in the Philippines. The couple married in July 1971 and almost immediately went on a long voyage—to a U.S. Army base near Seoul, South Korea. In those days young doctors were obliged to spend a year plying their trade in the armed forces. Jerry and Lois thoroughly enjoyed their year there and later continued to roam the world with enthusiasm.

When they returned to the States, Jerry joined a cardiology practice in San Jose in the San Francisco Bay Area. Lois and he settled in Los Gatos, a suburb just west of San Jose, and lived there for the next five decades. He had a successful career as a cardiologist and served a term as chief of staff of the San Jose Medical Center (now closed). Jerry was a member of the Santa Clara County Medical Association and the San Jose Rotary Club and a supporter of the excellent local Opera San Jose. In the last few years, he had some serious heart problems that may have played a role in the fall that led to his death.

We’ve lost one of our best.