I had a lot of fun in high school. A little of it had to do with classes like with Don McBain and Joan Naegele, plays directed by Bob Lampf and choreography by Ralph Thomas. Theater was a great joy, and I had the same steady girlfriend through most of my years at LHS. There were great and sometimes ecstatically silly times—like shout/singing 60’s sitcom theme songs in the bus—in marching band to and from the football games, cast parties for the plays and musicals at the Claremont Diner and elsewhere, and exploring the attic and “bell” tower of LHS. “The Ballad of Gilligan’s Isle” still sometimes rings in my ears.

After graduation, and a summer of play, I was off to Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland to start college. I had known since a very young age, probably about eight or nine, that I wanted to be a psychiatrist. I know, a little weird, right? So, I started into premed, majoring in psychology.

My junior year was spent in Bristol, England, studying psychology and economics, and meeting new friends, with a little travel thrown in. I climbed most of the way up Mt. Snowdon—it’s all of 3560 feet high and was very snowy at the time–on one of my breaks. It’s actually a very large and not too steep hill, and the route involves no real climbing, no ropes, no oxygen tanks. Still fun though and a great view.

I also worked at and ran the college radio station at CWRU where I met the great wordsmith “Weird Al” Yankovic, along with Dr. Demento and Pat Metheny. Dr. Demento always had on his top hat, but when he arrived at the station to do an interview with the guy who was training me to be a DJ, he was very quiet and demure until the microphone was turned on. As soon as the mic was live, he came alive with it, with his familiar loud goofy voice, introduced weird Al, who had just recently recorded “My Bologna,“ and then, as soon as the mic was turned off, reverted back to his shy, quiet self.

For several summers during college, I drove limousines around the NJ/NYC airports, along with weddings and proms. It was sometimes good practice for a career spent listening to people talk about themselves. Good tips too: The most memorable was after driving three couples to their prom, waiting for them, then closing the barrier between driver and passenger compartment for a few hours while they all made out in the back, I was awarded by the last kid I dropped off with $50 in cash (a lot in 1979), an unopened bottle of champagne (he was underage so couldn’t take it home) and a joint.

I stayed at CWRU for Medical school. In the third year of med school, we did clinical rotations, in each of the major specialties, and my psychiatry rotation was on an adolescent inpatient unit. A few days in, I noticed this beautiful, very smart occupational therapist, who unfortunately had just been assaulted by a LARGE, roughly 1 foot long, 1 inch wide, rubber band shot at her by a conduct-disordered teenage boy. The photo collage (above) shows a comparison between the usual, and the much bigger, weaponized version.

In places like this, when teenagers misbehave there are all kinds of behavioral interventions, trying to get the young person to understand the problem with their behavior and perhaps apologize to the person he’s hurt. Fortunately, she hadn’t been hurt seriously, but this process went on for weeks, until finally, he tearfully broke down and apologized.

In the Staff celebration of our accomplishment, while everyone was congratulating themselves, the OT spoke up and said “I’ll take some of the credit for this.” That really caught my attention, since I was drawn to assertive smart women. A few weeks after the rotation was over, I called Kathi for our first date and we were married about a year and a half later, just before I graduated.

Then it was off to residency at Tufts/New England Medical Center in Boston. Residency is pretty much all work and no play, 90-to-100-hour weeks, on call every fourth night, very little sleep on those nights, and tremendous learning, but a lot of stress. In the midst of all this, Kathi got an offer for a full ride at OT graduate school at University of Illinois in Chicago. I approached my residency director, who was the first woman to be president of the American Psychiatric Association, and told her that I needed to move to Chicago to further my wife’s career. I guessed right that telling her this (the truth) was the best way to get her help, and she helped me arrange to do the last six months of my residency in Chicago. We moved in December 1988 and have been living here ever since.

A few years later, we had our only son, Daniel, who just turned 34 and is in the process of moving in with a delightful young woman, Krista. Probably my greatest challenge was co-shepherding him with Kathi, and myself living through, some serious but thankfully non-malignant health problems Dan had as a 14-year-old. This went on for several years and made all of our lives a lot more difficult, but he was completely cured and his health is good now.

My career has taken me through 20+ years in private practice, seeing a wide range of people in suburban Chicago with all sorts of issues, ranging from ordinary troubles, like most of us have, to very serious mental illness. I also worked for 15 years in a public sector community mental health center, in charge of the psychiatric part of the services for around 2500 patients at a time.

Then, in the early 2010s, an opportunity came up at a private, national referral treatment center for young adults called Yellowbrick. It had been created and was being run by someone I had known for over 20 years, but we hadn’t worked closely together prior to this.

I took a leap of faith to switch from what Kathi used to call my “soul work” with the disadvantaged, with a little concern that I would be just working with a bunch of spoiled, rich kids, but very interested in how that work was being approached at Yellowbrick. The treatment there is unique, partly because any place that accepts insurance has to limit what’s offered based on the insurance industry’s outrageous constraints on mental health care.

It turns out that people with resources who have serious troubles are suffering just as much as those without. The folks I’ve been working with for the last 13 years are very troubled, highly at risk (suicide, substance abuse, self-injury and self-endangerment) and have tried lots of other treatment without adequate results. It’s highly challenging and occasionally scary, but we have a terrific team and the freedom to use all the techniques and technology that’s available to try to help.

A lot of them get a whole lot better.

At this point I’m thinking about retirement before too much longer. In my field many folks do this gradually. It’s not that hard to maintain a part-time practice. Since the pandemic 80% of mental health professionals have part or all of the practice virtually by video or even by phone or texting, but (the pun is always intended!) I’m just not wired for that. Also, the intensity of what I’ve been doing makes me want to have time to pursue all the things I’ve been putting off while I’ve been so busy with work. Like travel, seeing if my golf game is capable of improvement (my goal is to get my score consistently into the 90’s or lower—and I’ve got a ways to go for that), doing more cooking, visiting friends and family around the country, and hobbies like horticulture (we’re about to add a greenhouse to our home).

Sadly, I haven’t been very much in touch with most of my classmates from LHS ‘77. It was great to see many of you at the 40th reunion and I’m planning to come to the 50th. I did see Ken Gilberg a few weeks ago while he was visiting from Panama, and Ken Hausman the last time I was in Boston, but my particular relationship with work combined with living 800 miles from NJ have converged to keep me pretty distant without much time to connect much, other than with local folks and co-workers. Even in my current position at work after 40 years in the field I still work about 55-60 hours a week and time off is limited.

The other thing about the work I love so much is that I can’t talk with anyone about the most interesting part which is people’s painful stories, and especially about their courage and determination to change in the face of all that trauma. It’s always been inspiring, it keeps me coming in every day, and it’s all confidential. If anyone has seen “Severance,” it’s a little like the non-fiction version of that—except I don’t get to forget about it when I go home.

When Michael asked me to write this, I thought I’d have trouble coming up with very much. That’s like saying I’m shy and often can’t come up with much to say in a conversation. Which has been said about me…never.

I hope to see many of you at our 50^th reunion!

Best to all.