Science vs. Religion: (Chapter Two) (Humans)

by David Turell , Monday, February 21, 2011, 17:33 (4819 days ago) @ xeno6696


> You mention feeling guided in your life; I can safely say that I've never felt that. I've felt lucky: There are two key people in my life that set me on the path I'm on now, my wife and pharmacist I worked with as an overnight supervisor of a drug store. But every choice has been my own, and I've never felt "guided" to anything.-My guidance is in a way strange: the doctor who delivered me in Brooklyn was a Southern gentleman who trained in N.Y. His grandfather was Lt. Gen.James Longstreet who was basically (if not officially) second in command to Robert E. Lee. Dr. Longstreet stoked my desire to be like him at age 3. I never looked back, only forward, for a career decision. As a young kid in Queens I read books about cowboys and the Alamo and dreamt of being a Texas cowboy. I was admitted to Syracuse Med school based on very high scholastic marks, at a time when there were quotas against Jewish candidates. There I met my wife, and the way I ended up in Texas was after I was in the Army (required)as a physician, we followed my wife's physician brother to Texas. He had met his wife in Chicago, visiting her physician uncle. She was from Houston and so my brother-in-law asked the Air Force to station him there for his service. With family in Houston, and we had no place we wanted to live, we followed them to Houston, where I was in practice for over 30 years. I planned an early retirement, before I knew my wife would die of cancer at an early age. -I set my retirement for age 62, 41 years after I entered med school. Not wildly wealthy, but enough to do what I wanted. I could not talk my wife into leaving Houston for a ranch. Lunches with girl friends and shopping were too important, but we had fun helping out at a daughter's ranch. Ironicaly my wife died of cancer, freeing me to have my ranch. A good friend, a farm and ranch Realtor, who had found our danghter's ranch for her, found a ranch for she and I, as we had quickly fallen in love, and later married.-That marraige was pre-destined. Like my Mother's father, I married a much younger woman, in a sense never looking back by never stopping and moving on. The comparison with Grandpa Mike is amazingly complete, and would take another long entry to explain. One of many points: Susan's birthday and Mathilda's birthday are the same! There is a whole list of these coincidences. -I know you will say I made many decisions, but as I look at it, I 'was going with the flow' as it presented itself, for whatever reason or force it came about.