I’m about to post my annual football preview and that is traditionally the time when I have change my avatar: another ‘SU Season’: football, basketball and lacrosse, is about to begin. Last year I chose a screen shot of Marlo Thomas, (an old crush), from the opening of her series “That Girl”, where she plays a young would-be actress going to New York, confident that she’ll gain success there. There was one shot where she looks in a department store window and a glamorously dressed mannequin suddenly turns into her and winks at her. With all the optimism we had after our 10-3 football season and high hopes for the basketball and lacrosse teams to regain their former glory, it seemed relevant, both for the optimism and for the naïveté displayed. The latter quality proved more relevant as the football team sagged to 5-7, the basketball team struggled through another ‘bubble team’ season and the #1 ranked lacrosse team found their season cancelled.
That was all very disappointing but it prepared us for 2020, a year that seems to further disappoint us every day. We have a great need to fix things and get better so we can get going again. That and the tremendous work of our medical professionals under very difficult conditions led me to the idea that my avatar should have something to do with the medical profession.
Anyone who follows my work, (including on the ‘Entertainment’ board), knows that I have a great affinity for the TV series that were on when I was growing up in the 60’s. (My avatar before Marlo was David Janssen of “The Fugitive”.) There were two great medical shows in the 60’s: ‘Dr. Kildare’ and ‘Ben Casey’. I’ve had Kildare on DVD for some time and found out that the first year of Casey is out now and I’ve just finished watching that, alternating with the first year of Kildare. I decided that I like Kildare better, mostly because Richard Chamberlain is not only more handsome and nicer than Vince Edwards but is also a better actor. (Edwards has two expressions: a glower alternating occasionally with the type of forced smile a celebrity gives when a fan wants a selfie with him). Also the scripts seemed a bit better and the acting and directing a bit calmer and more realistic.
But there was another difference: Kildare is one of several series from the early 60’s that featured a young, idealistic hero entering a vital profession and working for an important institution who gets mentored by an older, wiser but still highly principled member of the profession: ‘Dr. Kildare’ in medicine, ‘The Defenders’ in law, ‘Mr. Novak’ in education, ‘Naked City’ in law enforcement, etc. If they could just get people to take their medicine, obey the law and do their homework, there was a faith that the system would treat them fairly and benevolently.
Ben Casey tended to anticipate the late 60’s. He was a rebel, demanding of everyone around him. His patients needed to do what was good for them. His colleagues had to do things the way they needed to be done and his superiors had to understand what was necessary. He made no assumption that anything good would happen unless someone insisted that it happen and he was the one willing to do the insisting. Ultimately, that attitude seemed more realistic and useful than Kildare’s benign smile. Then there was the fact that Kildare was an intern and Casey was a chief resident and a prominent neurosurgeon.
I concluded that it would be nice to wake up after surgery and see Dr. Kildare’s smiling face there but I’d be more likely to survive if Ben Casey had done the surgery. Thus, he is my new avatar for a seaosn in which we need to fix things and get better.
over