The day I got my acceptance to The U (University of Virginia) was a glorious day. I thought things just couldn’t have been better. In fact, things got even better as my best friends called me to let me know they were accepted as well. I called Dr Perlman and told him I was on my way, four years of undergrad work, medical school and residency, then I’d join him. Each step along the way, I’d call Dr Perlman with an update. Little did I know, when he retired due to poor health, how closely my life would parallel his (he was a grad of the University of Virginia, as well.)
Party! From day one, The U was one big party. Freedom! I was free to do whatever I wanted and my childhood feeling of immortality was boosted by copious amounts of alcohol and some weed. The first year my roommate and I didn’t get along, so I moved in with Abe (my Richmond friend) and slept on his couch. We joined a fraternity and Abe became my brother, best friend and lifelong mentor. Abe is a true mensh: a person of the highest integrity and honesty and has helped the “Milo” in me stay on the straight and narrow road ever since.
Nonetheless, “Milo” was lucky to survive college. Occasional weed became daily weed. Alcohol flowed freely with wild weekends, road trips and girls! At first, we had to take road trips to neighboring girl’s schools, as the University was an all-male school. We’d rent a U-Haul truck, outfit it with a keg of beer and mattresses and drive to Mary Washington to party. Looking back in time, I can’t believe the shit we did and survived. I think my bad back comes from jumping off the roof of my frat house tied to a rope and swinging across the street and back.
One of my favorite memories was the night my date and I got wasted and semi-passed out in a frat brother’s room. My date was on Dean’s bed and Dean wanted to use his bed so he sat down next to her and put his hands on her shoulders. In my drunken stupor, I pleaded with Dean to leave her alone but he ignored me. He sat her up and just as they were face to face, she puked (really heaved) directly in his face covering him from head to toe. She also trashed Abe’s car, the hotel room and, yes, me!
Another memory that holds its place in the top 10 of my memories was spring break in the Bahamas with “J”. “J” and I got second degree sunburns riding motorcycles around the island. We got separated one night; and, when I got back to the hotel, I found that every fire extinguisher on the hall had been emptied and were lying on the floor. “J” was in our room yelling, “I’m on fire! Put me out!” A few more drinks and he was out. Thank God there were no security cameras.
Frat life was grand. I’ll never forget attacking the frat house across the street with M80s and rockets of all sizes. One of my brothers was a marksman with his sling shot. He was great at punching out the windows in their house with cherry bombs. Of course we are all in our 70s and I doubt many of my brothers would admit to what we did.
So, what about school? As I previously mentioned, I was a gifted “crammer.” I skipped most of my classes and I still have nightmares about not being able to find my classroom the day of the test as I never went to class. I did go to my psych classes and met my next mentor, Dr Phillip Best there. Dr Best stoked my interest in research and eventually set me up in my own rodent lab. A frat brother and I did research on the hormonal cycles of mice in a controlled environment.
Picture this: Dave would pick up a mouse and put her in my left coat pocket while I was doing a vaginal smear on the mouse I had in my right hand. By the time I put my mouse in its cage, the one that was in my pocket had climbed up to my shoulder, crossed my back and was heading down towards my hand. It was a blast. Unfortunately, our results sucked due to an unreportable variable. Dave, the mice and I would get stoned every day and we didn’t dare report that little indiscretion.
I was in trouble. I had a whole semester’s grade tied to my project’s outcome and it looked like I had failed. Dave and I spent days in the library looking for a statistical test that would make our data significant. Hallelujah, we found it. Dr. Best saw through our ruse but gave us A’s for our ingenuity. I learned a valuable lesson. I learned how to manipulate data to make it say what you want it to say! (Milo at his best.) To this very day, I don’t trust data that I haven’t personally vetted. And yes, medical research became part of my daily practice of medicine.
Despite eight straight semesters on Dean’s List, I did not get into The U’s medical school, nor did I get into any other medical school. I have a reading disorder and have always had problems with standardized tests, the MCATs proved too much for me, scoring in the 14th percentile in English.
My mother insisted that I stay in school, so I became an anatomy grad student at the University of Virginia. My friends and brothers had moved on. I was angry and, in retrospect, depressed. I did not have a mentor. The director of the program was an old school dictator and we didn’t get along. After the first year, I was booted out and headed for Mexico. Mexico was good for me. I’ll cover Mexico tomorrow.
Here’s your joke of the day:
An old Jewish man rubs a lamp, and a genie emerges.
“For freeing me from the lamp, I will grant you one wish,” the genie says.
The old man instantly pulls out a map of Israel and says, “My deepest wish is that the Jews, Muslims and Christians in the Holy Land will live together in peace and fellowship forever.”
The genie hangs his head and says, “Even with all my power, I cannot achieve such a feat. You must wish for something else.”
“In that case,” the old man says, “I just wish that my wife would give me a blowjob.”
The genie thinks for a moment and says, “Let me see that map again…”
