Letters, p.7
Letters, page 7
*18 Mitty, the protagonist in James Thurber’s story “The Secret Life of Walter Mitty,” is a meek and ordinary man prone to heroic fantasies.
*19 One of the main English medical journals.
*20 Bert Feinstein, a prominent neurosurgeon. (His future wife, Dianne Feinstein, would become mayor of San Francisco and, later, a United States senator.)
*21 That is, compared to a tissue culture or “preparation” such as one might use for histological studies.
*22 Even though OS had already completed his internship in England, California required graduates of foreign medical schools to repeat a year of internship in the United States.
*23 YMCA.
*24 At the time, Mount Zion offered accommodations for interns.
*25 The annual fast for Yom Kippur, the Jewish day of atonement.
*26 Grant Levin, who, with Bert Feinstein, was in charge of Mount Zion’s neurology department.
*27 One treatment for such a tumor, which can cause seizures, is to use electrodes to probe the brain (while the patient is awake) to locate the epileptic focus, and then to ablate it. Since the brain itself has no pain receptors, this is mostly painless for the patient.
*28 A London department store with a gourmet food section.
*29 The end of Yom Kippur is marked by “breaking the fast” with a feast of traditional foods.
*30 The chazzan, or cantor, leads the congregation in prayers, which are often sung.
*31 OS often used this spelling for “shul.”
*32 The Middlesex Hospital in London, where OS had studied medicine.
*33 A classic neurological test is to draw a circle and ask the patient to write the appropriate numbers in the “clock.”
*34 Beyond the Fringe, a satirical comedy revue written and performed by Jonathan Miller, Alan Bennett, Peter Cook, and Dudley Moore, debuted at the Edinburgh Festival to great acclaim, and would soon move to the West End in London, followed by a Broadway run in 1962.
*35 Miller had enclosed a press clipping, a review of his show.
*36 In medical terms, “haploid” refers to cells that have only one set of chromosomes, namely eggs and sperm. OS seems to use it here as a euphemism for his immersion in the relative freedom of gay life in San Francisco after his more secretive encounters in England.
*37 More likely sailing. As he commented in a letter around this time to his parents, “One of the lovely things about professional life here, is that one not only makes money, but the leisure and the facilities to use it gracefully. Half the staff here have sailing boats, which strikes me as much healthier than the stolid English consultants, who just toddle round a golf course.”
*38 As he would write in Uncle Tungsten, OS had been beguiled, as an adolescent, by John Steinbeck’s Cannery Row, and entertained dreams of becoming a marine biologist like Doc.
*39 A type of mollusk, OS’s favorite group of marine creatures.
*40 A few years before, Jonathan Miller had given OS a copy of one of Gunn’s books of poetry, The Sense of Movement, and OS shared Gunn’s enthusiasm for motorcycles and the leather scene.
*41 A reference to rough trade, or perhaps just cruising.
*42 Jonathan’s wife, Rachel Miller, was pursuing her medical degree.
*43 Michael, who had become overtly schizophrenic as a teenager, lived with their parents except when he was hospitalized for treatment.
*44 Almost none of OS’s letters sent individually to his aunt survive, and those included in this volume are likely drafts, whether eventually sent or not. In the 1960s, most of his letters to England were on airmail “flimsies,” lightweight sheets of paper that would fold to form their own envelope, to reduce postage costs. While occasionally he would type out letters using carbon sets, copies of most airmails to his parents survive only because they were returned to OS after his father’s death.
*45 Grant Levin.
*46 Elsie Sacks was a surgeon and gynecologist; Sam Sacks was a general practitioner.
*47 Or, as Americans might say, “broken in.”
*48 The phrenic nerve controls the diaphragm’s movement; blocking or cutting it would cure the hiccups but also make breathing more difficult. OS recounted this story of the hiccup patient in On the Move, prompted by rereading this letter to his parents many years later.
*49 Presumably, all the neurology interns and residents.
*50 Donald Hebb, a Canadian psychologist, studied the neurological underpinnings of learning; his work in the mid-twentieth century was hugely influential.
*51 For a longer description of Huxley, as well as Arthur Koestler, see On the Move.
*52 This might seem an exaggeration, but it was quite possible even in 1961; the ground temperature at the aptly named Furnace Creek reached 201 degrees on July 15, 1972.
*53 Outside New Orleans, his BMW gave out, and he hitched a ride with some truckers. He later wrote about this adventure in a piece called “Travel Happy (1961).”
*54 OS’s parents saved all his letters and often noted the date when they were received or acknowledged.
*55 He had replaced the broken-down BMW with a Brough Superior, an English bike known as the “Rolls-Royce of motorcycles.”
*56 He is referring here to a rather spectacular failure at a physiology project on Jamaican ginger (“jake”) paralysis, described in On the Move.
*57 Charles Singer (1876–1960), author of many books on the history of medicine and biology.
*58 Miller.
*59 Miller and his two best school friends, OS and Eric Korn, were all great admirers of H. G. Wells’s. (Korn, who later became an antiquarian book dealer, specialized in the works of Wells and Darwin.)
*60 Santiago Ramón y Cajal, John Hughlings Jackson, and Jean-Martin Charcot were foundational figures of nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century neurology.
*61 OS is describing a rotating internship, in which young doctors are exposed to a variety of specialties: obstetrics, surgery, cardiology, etc.
*62 In England, string vests, usually sleeveless, were singlets made of netted material, which would keep one cooler in summer and warmer in winter.
*63 Likely he was in Los Padres National Forest, home to a number of feral pigs.
*64 “Travel Happy.”
*65 OS’s brother David and his wife, Lillie, had three children.
2
Los Angeles
1962–1965
To Elsie and Samuel Sacks
July 6, 1962
UCLA Medical Center, Los Angeles
Dear Ma and Pa,
[…] I am thoroughly delighted with the University and the neurology dept. so far. The campus itself is immense, ultra-modern, ultra-efficient, but by no means as unfriendly as these qualities might suggest. I am working in the NPI (neuropsychiatric institute), which was built only a few months ago. I am one of four residents, all of whom are intelligent and charming, and a pleasure to know and work with. The Professor himself, Augustus Rose, is a gigantic man (almost seven feet high, and weighing, I suspect, a good deal more than I do). A magnificent teacher who obviously enjoys teaching immensely, accessible, and generally very stimulating. It is really marvellous being in an environment like this, after that unspeakably horrible year at Mt. Zion.
I will not pretend that things are slack. I find I have to be on the wards soon after seven, collect all bloods etc. myself before rounds with the senior resident at eight. Then clinic till noon. Usually time for a quick swim in the dazzlingly blue NPI pool, and a sandwich lunch in the great tree-shaded patio enclosed by the four main hospital blocks. Rounds with the Professor every afternoon till about three. Then admissions. As things stand, one is on duty every 5th evening and night. It is hard work, but very stimulating, with none of the scamping which is done at a private hospital.
The rest of the campus is fairly deserted, this being the summer vacation. I have been very immobile myself, not having the bike; Los Angeles is inconceivably immense and diffuse, and its public transport is practically non-existent. It is in general a good deal more spacious than SF: the streets wider. There is a moderate amount of smog, but since the hospital is air-conditioned, one is not too conscious of the outside atmosphere. I think this should be a very profitable and enjoyable year.
How terribly quickly that month in England passed![*1] This is the way, what one enjoys passes in a flash, what one hates lasts forever. Next time I must plan things better, so that I am not committed to an incessant social round, and end up with no time to myself. I hope it is not too early for you to consider, and plan for, coming to California next summer. […]
Love,
Oliver.
To Elsie and Samuel Sacks
July 19, 1962
[Los Angeles]
Dear Ma and Pa,
[…] I strolled down to the beach last Sunday. Or at least, I thought it would be a stroll. It turned out to be seven miles away, two hours walk. And after a pleasant swim (the water is about 75), and a reconnaissance of possible future places to live, I turned round to take the bus back—and found that I had forgotten to bring any money out with me. So I had another seven miles walk back! It was a blazingly hot day, and I was dressed far too heavily, and sweated like a pig. […] In future, especially with my build and heat-intolerance, I must be very careful to walk slowly and dress lightly. My weight, you will be pleased to hear, has dropped fifteen pounds since I came here, and is now 248 (stripped). Another 20–25 lb. to go, and then I think I shall level out, i.e. around sixteen stone.
I have a very interesting, and I fear tragic, patient: a young man with coccidiomyces meningitis. Cocc. is endemic in the San Joaquin valley, and to a lesser extent in the San Fernando valley, where he comes from. The systemic form is very rare, not more than one in a thousand or so of those who get the disease [and] the meningitis even rarer. The poor bugger wasn’t diagnosed six months ago, as he should have been, and I think now that he’s probably had it. He has very severe hydrocephalus, for which we will do a ventricular-jugular shunt, and frequent terrible seizures, which are due to his brainstem jamming in his foramen magnum. It is amazing that he continues to survive, without ill consequence, such a horrible business, repeated many times daily. Today I saw the spores (microspherules) grown out of his ventricular fluid, which has confirmed the diagnosis absolutely. We are starting him on Amphotericin B—a thoroughly toxic and nasty antibiotic, and the only substance known which has any useful effect against the fungus. In future, I shall avoid Highway 33, and the whole of the San Joaquin Valley I think. I shudder when I remember the nonchalance with which I slept one hot and dusty summer night near Blackwell’s Corner, with the dreadful spores blowing all around me. Of course, the majority of the inhabitants in these areas do have the disease, asymptomatically: it is only a tiny fraction of unfortunates who get it in its lethal systemic or meningitic form. […]
Look forward to hearing from you again soon,
Love,
Oliver.
* * *
—
OS spent his first year in Los Angeles living near Muscle Beach, sharing an apartment with Mel Erpelding, a young man he had met in San Francisco. They worked out together and traveled frequently on weekends, exploring California. OS had fallen in love with Mel, but their relationship, as intimate friends, remained platonic.
To Elsie and Samuel Sacks
September 13, 1962
UCLA Medical Center, Los Angeles
Dear Ma and Pa,
[…] I spent a very happy and healthy week camping out in the forests of Oregon and North California, becoming a considerable fisherman, and an adept at lighting a fire with a few damp twigs. I still covered quite a great distance—3500 miles in my round trip, in nine days—and saw a great deal of country I had never seen before. I came back through the Mother Lode, and had the excitement of recovering some minute flecks of gold on stones in some of their auriferous rivers. There are a few people there who still pan for gold: the yield is scanty, but they can just about eke out a precarious subsistence. In Amador City, one of the “ghost towns” on the way back, an old prospector showed me a 13 oz. nugget he once dredged up: it was a funny feeling handling it, and he kept his hand on his gun all the time I held the precious thing, so I wasn’t too tempted to run off with it! Pop—you would go crazy about swimming in some of the lakes and rivers here: late summer is a perfect time, because the temperatures are around 65, and the water has an extraordinary transparency. In Summit Lake, in Lassen Volcanic park, you would see hundreds of brown and speckled trout swimming round a boat, if you took one out. I caught three, and made an excellent supper of them. Sooner or later, I may invest in a line of my own.
[…] I have now moved into the new apartment (address: 3021, Washington Boulevard, Santa Monica, California: telephone not yet connected), which I am sharing with a friend, Mel Erpelding, whom I knew for a couple of years in San Francisco: he’s doing sociology. This way we only pay $45 each, and I think live much better than one person could do alone. We are just a quarter of a mile from the beach and ocean and have resolved to get up half an hour earlier each morning and get a swim: it’s a good way to start the day. Better in the doing than the anticipation! I’ve borrowed a few pots and pans etc. from Joan,[*2] which I will return to her as we accumulate some of our own. There’s quite a capital expense in getting these things, and sheets and blankets etc, which we shall keep as small as possible. […] The apartment is about fifteen minutes from UCLA by bike, which is really quite reasonable.
I wonder if you could now send on to me that parcel of books, and also send—if they have not been included in it already—my two vols of the shorter O.E.D.[*3] As for the remainder of the books, we will have to think of these another time, when I am more permanently settled. […]
That’s my lot for now. Look forward to receiving your next letter.
Regards to everyone,
From your slender sixteen stone son,
Ol.
To Elsie and Samuel Sacks
October 2, 1962
UCLA Medical Center, Los Angeles
Dear Ma and Pa,
[…] I went to the local shool on Rosh Hashanah: I could hardly plead that it was too far away, for by a strange chance I live only three doors away from the shool! Being used to the Orthodox ritual, I found the reading of English, etc. rather distasteful. Not of course that I could understand the Hebrew anyhow, but still, I like the sound of it, and it’s familiar, and one is a creature of habit. By chance, the Rabbi there is called Samuel Sacks! We also have a patient called Nellie Sacks. I never ran into so many goddam Sackses before! Went to a Rosh Hashannah dinner with one of the gang on Sunday, and that too made a pleasant change. My first chopped liver in three months: better than peanut butter which seems to be my staple these days (I am now a svelte 222 lb, and feeling almost emaciated).
The apartment is getting more organized. I am adjusting to the horrid realities of scrubbing floors, beating carpets, degreasing cooking pans etc. and even beginning to take a little pride in the place. I shall send you a photo of it some time. It’s right down by the ocean, so I go swimming almost every night. The water is brightly luminous now, in these late summer days, the waves breaking into blue and orange as they topple over: wonderful sight. We have filled the apartment with jars of luminous seawater, and they glow eerily at night.[*4] In fact the place is rapidly coming to resemble a small marine biology museum, and strangers can’t bear the smell of decaying seaweed and formalin: but I like it.
A snippet for you, Pop. I went into an Army Surplus store a few days ago to buy something or other. Got talking to the fellow there who had an obviously London accent. He told me he came from the East End, near Commercial Road. Oh yes, I was born there myself, I said (a pardonable lie). Anyhow, after a while I said, Let me guess who your family doctor was? Well? Dr. Samuel Sacks. He stared at me as if I was a thought reader. Anyhow, we reminisced for a long time about you: he said there wasn’t another in the East End to touch you. His father was called Solly Oder, and he had a barber-shop at 8, Grove St. Does this ring a bell with you? It’s a small world.
What else? I’ve been fussing round, not much real travelling. A lot to do at the hospital. Swimming. Training. Buying household things—how many there are! […]
This is a rather patchy letter: it’ll be more solid next time. In the meantime, keep well (you didn’t say how you were getting on now, Ma), make tentative plans for coming to California next summer, and give my regards to everybody,
