The Road Home

THE ROAD HOME

        My road calls me, lures me
                    West, east, south and north;
        Most roads lead men homewards,
                     My road leads me forth.

                                         John Masefield (1878-1967)

The Jury
When we last "spoke", I had completed my FINAL final exams and, because I was starting an internship in Syracuse, NY immediately, I had to leave before graduation, or as it was better known in Belgium, "la deliberation".  They didn't have caps and gowns and all that back then. (They do now!)   The jury met and deliberated to decide if you were to graduate or not based on how you did in your final exams.  Students arrived all dressed up, with their families present and the jury, made up of all your professors, would then announce whether you succeeded or failed.  If you succeeded, you were either announced as "satisfait", "distinction", "grand distinction" or "la plus grand distinction"!  If you failed, the pronouncement was "adjourne'" to the dismay of the student and his or her family and the student would have to return in September to repeat every single exam.  So, I left without even knowing if I was really a physician!  There was no internet back then but there was a transatlantic telephone cable so I relied on a classmate to call me with the verdict.  I breathed a sigh of relief as he told me I had passed with a gentleman's "satisfait"!  Weeks later I received my medical diploma in the mail, neatly rolled up in a cardboard tube.  It was signed by every single professor and listed every single course I had taken during my clinical years.  Besides walking up for the diploma,  the only other thing I missed was walking through the front gates of the medical school, the only time anyone was allowed to do that.

The front gate of the Faculty of Medicine, Free University of Brussels (c.1960's) They've since moved to a modern campus.

It's official!

Farewells and a trip to remember
There were sad goodbyes to friends in our village, classmates, the faculty and staff at St.John's School, and Suzanne's students and their families.  The biggest challenge was figuring out how we would get our "child", the 100-pound German Shepherd, Rex, back to the States.  Suzanne, having once worked for a Belgian moving company, had expertly arranged to have most of our "stuff" shipped back on a container ship... but Rex was a different story.   I had arranged with the Belgian airline, Sabena, to transport Rex back to New York on the same flight we were on.  They promised a proper-sized crate to provide safety and comfort for our pet.   Rex was somewhat of a high strung dog and, being concerned he'd go crazy, I consulted our veterinarian.

I'll preface this by saying that once, when we were away in London for a long weekend, we were told by the kennel, upon our return, that Rex had "escaped" by jumping over a six foot+ wall and had run off into the forest, never to be seen again.  We combed the area without any luck but I heard someone in the village mention he had been seen walking into a beauty salon in the neighboring village and laying down, letting children play with him.  The owner called a friend of hers who owned a guard dog business and who would probably sell the dog as a guard dog.  After further inquiry, I called the new "owner" of Rex and explained that I believed the dog he had was mine.  He told me to go to a little cafe' in Placenoit and ask for Pierre.  He'd be the one in the back with a beret, smoking a Gauloise!  This was turning out to be a spy thriller.  I sat with Pierre and we had a beer together during which time he questioned me as to my dog's size, color pattern and temperament.  Once he was satisfied with my responses, I followed him in my car to his kennel and there I was joyously reunited with Rex, with 100 pounds of dog jumping into my arms!

Rex

Back to the veterinarian.  He gave me a single pill, Mellaril, which was a major tranquilizer and instructed me to put it into a raw meatball and give it to Rex one hour before we were to fly.

They forgot to add: "Caution: A paradoxical reaction might occur!"

We arrived at Zaventem Airport with plenty of time to spare.  When I brought Rex up to the counter, the Sabena representative reached behind the counter and produced a flimsy plastic crate, barely large enough to contain a guinea pig.  He said, "You will see, Monsieur, there will be no problem!"  Within five minutes, right in front of us, Rex had burst through the crate like Sampson at the temple!  I told them they had to do better and they brought out a larger wooden crate with a porch door latch.  By now Rex was reacting to the Mellaril in the exact opposite way intended.  He had become a wild beast!  Succeeding in getting him into the crate and taken away, Suzanne and I moseyed over to the passport control and suddenly observed a whole group of gendarmes running around chasing after a German Shepherd on the other side of the gate...OUR German Shepherd!  Finally a third, stronger crate was produced and, once the beast was inside, it was wrapped with rope.  A half-hour later as we were boarding the big Boeing 747, I looked down from the jetway, I glanced down on the tarmac and saw our own Houdini, Rex with his leg up, urinating on the giant wheel of the plane!

We quietly and cowardly boarded the plane filled with 300 passengers knowing some nice Belgian family would adopt Rex!  (What was I thinking?!)  As I expected, after the engines had rev'ed up and then shut down, the announcement I expected came over the PA:  "Monsieur et Madame Mayer, il faut quitter l'avion tout de suite."  (Get off the plane!) We stood next to the giant wheel hugging Rex while the nice mechanics fed him Perrier.  Belgians love their dogs and, that being said, Sabena delayed the flight one hour to send a truck into Brussels to get the proper crate (that we should have had in the first place).  The plane took off with all three of us on board.  Sabena always served great food and wine with white linen and silver and a menu, so it gave us some time to relax, sit back and enjoy the flight.

Finally!!!

Apparently, a half-hour away from landing at JFK, the pilot radioed ahead for special directions as there was an uncontrollable beast on board.  He was instructed, instead of going into the gate, to pull onto an auxiliary apron on the landing strip.  I was asked to disembark from the plane and a special station wagon was waiting for me that drove me around to the cargo hold.  I climbed over and around the hundreds of suitcases in the hold until I got to Rex who had eaten half the cage away.  The car took Rex, Suzanne and me directly to the gate where we were waved through immigration and customs without even a first look.
They were just happy to see us go!

We arrived at my parent's home where we were to spent the night before going on to Syracuse.  Rex promptly vomited up all the pieces of cage he had eaten on my mom's favorite carpet...and she, too was glad to see us finally go.  Arriving by car (our new purple AMC Gremlin) in Syracuse the next day, Suzanne and I (and even Rex) breathed a sigh of relief.  Weeks later, we received a package from Sabena containing the muzzle Rex had worn and lost in all the upheaval!  It might have sounded like fiction to you but every bit of this story occurred!  You can't make this stuff up.

And so, we settled into our nice little apartment on Buckley road in Liverpool, NY, a complex the hospital owned to house its interns and residents.  We were to live there for a year, a year in which I worked like a dog, but made many good friendships.  Even today, when I drive to NYC, I pass that hospital and the memories flow!

NEXT: The Internship