Читать книгу Welcome Home From Vietnam, Finally - Gus Kappler MD - Страница 9

On June 29, 1963, after my second year at the Cornell Medical College, we were married in St. John the Baptist Roman Catholic Church in Wading River, New York, followed by the reception at Felice’s in Patchogue, New York. This event was their first such function, just having opened for business, and in spite of that, we all had a great time. Back then on Long Island, the centerpieces were practical, a cluster of various liquors with mixers in a bucket. As we entered for the event, the substitute band leader asked the name, and Robin replied Viverito. When presented to the gathering, we were referred to as Mr. and Mrs. Viverito. Everyone exploded in laughter. My mom was not too happy, for her German son was marrying an Italian.

In a way that introduction was a premonition, for during all our fifty-plus years of marriage, she mastered the sometimes-daunting task of defining our family as I concentrated on my study of and the practice of surgery.

We experienced an abbreviated honeymoon at Mt. Airy Lodge in the Poconos. Loving to camp, I wanted to stay in a cabin not knowing we would share accommodations with a skunk. Thus, the early departure to return to our newly painted one-half tenement at 425 East, Sixty-Ninth Street, just up the block from Cornell Medical College in New York City.

Ed, Jack, Ron, George, and I became fast friends. Robin would fix them up with dates from Notre Dame.

I generated income by donating blood and performing EKGs on hospital patients. During exam time, a professor would pay a male student for his semen to study sperm mobility under stressful conditions. He was referred to as the professor of manual arts. I skipped that one.

Our windows bordered on Sixty-Ninth Street, and the pedestrians passing below ran the risk of being bombarded with water balloons.

The drug companies gave free formula to new mothers, a lot of it. We used formula as a cream substitute in Grasshoppers, Black Russians, and our coffee.