show-off

1. The bulldog.   These guys were the mascots for all the sports teams at Vicksburg (MI) Community High School, where I was a student ’65-’70.  The logo came long after I left, but I love it.  My time in the ‘burg let me start becoming a real person, rather than the fat stilted individual that was developing in Birmingham, which my dad happily left to come here.  Part of my heart is forever in that little village, as some of my lifelong friends are still there and I go back to visit frequently.  A few years back, some kids at the high school made a video over top of an ‘85 chestnut, if you want to take a look (1).  Still the same place.

2. The U.  It was the only place I would really go to college, coaxed on by my True-Blue dad, who never went there but followed Wolverines sports since the Depression.  I almost didn’t survive the post-hippie era but managed pre-med and grad school only to come back for post-doc and ultimate faculty position.  My paychecks outnumbered tuition checks and I retired True-Blue, even if the U didn’t love me back.

3. Commander Cody and His Lost Planet Airmen.  My wife tried to coax me out of this one, as I never had a real official connection to the band.  But I’ve been a fan since end of my freshman year and have written a book about the experience.  No band has brought me more joy.

4. Fisher Body.  My job for 4 summers as a security guard at the Comstock Fisher Body plant, where my dad was head of Labor Standards, basically paid for my college.  I had to tuck my long locks under a short-haired wig one summer to fake it.  The 30s era coach insignia, which used to grace every GM car, is long gone except for some very good bottles of red from Fisher Vineyards (2), started in the 70s in Napa by some descendent of Frederick, Charles, William, Lawrence, Edward, Alfred, or Howard.  I had a bottle of their cabernet to celebrate my father’s 100^th birthday.

5. University of Chicago.  The coat of arms for this staid college on the south side of Chicago – where I was privileged to go to medical school – had a pretty fierce beginning (3).  Approved by the board in 1910, just 18 years after the founding of the University, the hot red phoenix rising out of yellow flames hearkened to the rebirth of the entire city of Chicago after the 1871 fire.  Since 2012, the University has used a monochromatic maroon version of the same image.  Not so scary. By the way, “Crescat scientia; vita excolatur” translates to “Let knowledge grow from more to more; and so be human life enriched.”

6. St. George’s Hospital.  One of 2 London Hospitals where I did a month’s rotation as a senior medical student in the winter of ’79 (4).  The figure is St. George slaying the dragon.  The group of medical students seeing St. George’s that year were to be the last.   This site on Hyde Park Corner, the most expensive piece of real estate in London, had seen a hospital since 1733 and this grand white building since the early 1830s (5).  It’s now a luxury hotel, the Lanesborough (6).  Rooms start at £1000/night, give or take a few quid.

7. The Brompton.  Pardon me, Royal Brompton Hospital, the national chest hospital (heart and lung), more prestigious than St. George’s, started in 1842 as a place for patients with “consumption” (tuberculosis) and moved to its present site in 1846. Hyde Park and the Royal Albert Hall are nearby.

8. Barnes.  Where the computer matched me for my internal medicine internship and residency, probably one of the top five programs in the country.  Opening in 1914, it was one of the first teaching hospitals in the country.  Much of the money to make the hospital possible came from Robert Barnes, who made most of his bankrolling a little brewing operation by August Busch.  The “symbol” is something I scanned off my i.d. tag.   In 1996, Barnes merged with the even older (1902) Jewish Hospital next door, yielding one of those awful, hyphenated terms.  Two years earlier, Barnes merged with Christian Health Care which operates the two hospitals north of St. Louis we used to call “the Christian Brothers” (Christian and Christian Northwest), known to us for their excellent moonlighting opportunities.  The corporate name is “BJC Healthcare”, but somehow, no one says “Christian” when talking about Barnes.

9. The Karolinska.  The Nobel prizes are chosen by an assembly of 50 professors selected from the faculty of the Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm.  Karolinska Hospital is their medical branch.  Shortly after I hired on as faculty with the directive to develop arthroscopy as a tool for the rheumatologist, Staffan Lindblad, a rheumatologist at Karolinska Hospital, published a paper describing features of the synovium (joint lining) in arthritis he discovered by using an arthroscope (7).   Staffan was immediately my hero and we became friends.  When he organized the 1st EULAR/ESCIT Arthroscopy Course to take place in March ’95, he invited me to be on the faculty, a duty I’d repeat for the 2^nd course the next September.  We faculty were treated well: at each setting around our lunch table was placed a cold bottle of beer.

10. Hôpital Cochin.  French rheumatologists were the first to do arthroscopy in their county and did the most of it till the last decade or two.  At an American Rheumatism Association meeting in ’85 or ’86, my arthroscopy mentor Bill Arnold met up with Maxime Dougados, a hugely productive clinical researcher based at Cochin who was finding research applications for arthroscopy as performed by his young charge Xavier Ayral.  Bill and Maxime saw to it that Xavier and I met, and we became fast friends.  His activities were an inspiration.  We collaborated and co-authored a paper (8).  He and Maxime were instrumental in getting me invited to address the ’95 EULAR meeting in Amsterdam.  I visited Cochin once when I was in Paris for another meeting.  Xavier said he’d invite me there to give grand rounds, but that I’d have to deliver my remarks in French. 

11. Leeds.  Yes, I was once “Live at…”.   Paul Emery asked me to be part of the faculty for the 4th EULAR Arthroscopy Course to be held at University of Leeds Hospital in June ’99.  His young charges who were actually doing the work, Dougie Veale and Richard Reece, became good buddies of mine.  Both moved on from Leeds, Dougie being hugely successful at St. Vincent’s in Dublin.  Yes, I spent some time there for a project, but it was only a few days, so I didn’t include the logo. Oh, and “Et augebitur scientia” translates to “And knowledge will be increased”.

12. UCSD.  Ah, those 3 winter months in La Jolla ’17 .  Tenured UofM faculty are eligible for a paid sabbatical leave, so I aimed to take mine.  I’d hang out with scopy buddy friend Ken Kalunian and see what we could come up with.  Our grand arthroscopy plans were dashed but I managed to submit 5 papers and a grant.  My formal UCSD title was “Voluntary Clinical Professor, Department of Medicine, University of California at San Diego” and ran to July ’19.  Of course, “voluntary” means “no paycheck”.  Lovely part of the world.  Wish I could afford to live there.

13. Harbal.  When I started my blog “The View from Harbal” in January ’20, I thought it could use a logo.  For not too much money, some on-line outfit constructed this one for me.  It’s graced over 300 posts since. It actually looks a bit like my house on Harbal.  The only other street in the world with that name is in India.  The guy who developed this cul-de-sac neighborhood from an apple orchard in 1958 was named Harry Baldwin, and he just contracted his names (9).

14. Docere.  The word comes from the Latin “to teach”.  My wife formed this LLC in ’02 as she emerged from her Chief Scientist’s position at NASA to take on the speaker’s circuit, needing a place to park her fees (10).  The current income stream is mainly from her on-line textbook on scientific writing (11).  She let me join the outfit after about 6 months of retirement, in part so I could gin up some new business cards since all the rest were obsolete.  I designed our business cards and stationery, choosing our big blue earth as company symbol.  I don’t believe it’s trademarked.  We deal in all forms of knowledge generation and dissemination.  And as we know from Faber College (Animal House), “Knowledge is Good.”