Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Dr. Jack Kushner practiced medicine and neurosurgery for many years, and then he returned to the University of Maryland and earned a Master's Degree in the Financial Tract. He lives in Annapolis, Maryland with his wife, Annetta. He is constantly seeking new projects and developing new interests.

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Coping Successfully with Changing Tides and Winds

iUniverse, Inc.

Contents

Introduction...................................................................................viiChapter One: Lingerie on the Fountain..........................................................1Chapter Two: Two Worlds, Separate and Unequal..................................................7Chapter Three: Not as a Stranger...............................................................10Chapter Four: Years of Wonder..................................................................14Chapter Five: Letters from Annetta.............................................................20Chapter Six: Street Without Joy................................................................24Chapter Seven: Only Surgeons Win in War........................................................31Chapter Eight: Neurosurgical Giants............................................................38Chapter Nine: Neurosurgery Where George Washington Resigned His Commission.....................42Chapter Ten: Tacking: Changing Careers.........................................................55Chapter Eleven: Leading Up to Hall of Fame.....................................................63Chapter Twelve: Green Wave and Midshipmen......................................................65Chapter Thirteen: Solomonically Wise Decisions.................................................69Chapter Fourteen: International Medicine.......................................................74Chapter Fifteen: Life Worthwhile...............................................................80Chapter Sixteen: Surviving the Economic Downturn...............................................83Chapter Seventeen: Reunion.....................................................................87Bibliography...................................................................................91Web Sites......................................................................................94Notes..........................................................................................95

Chapter One

When I was born in 1939, the world was an inimical place into which to bring a child. The fingers of war were reaching across the world. The Holocaust was getting into high gear, and anti-Semitism was prevalent everywhere. Almost everyone was concerned about what was happening in Europe. Japan was becoming more aggressive. It was difficult for anyone to make plans.

My mom, Rose Kushner, was born in 1914 in Sheboygan, Wisconsin. Her mother, Golda Feldman, immigrated to the USA around 1890 from Latvia. Her father, Sam Feldman, immigrated to the USA from Lithuania in 1885, ostensibly to avoid being drafted into the tsar's army for twenty-five years.

My father, Louis Kushner, was born in 1908 in Washington DC. His mother was Sarah Kushner, who immigrated to the USA in 1885 from Minsk. His father, Jacob Kushner, immigrated to the USA in 1882 from Kiev. After Sarah and Jacob married, they lived in Washington DC, where my father was born. They lived and worked there until the influenza epidemic in 1918 took its toll with the demise of several of my father's siblings and Jacob, his father. Afterward my father lived with various relatives, worked in a grocery store, and finally moved to Jacksonville, Florida, to be with other relatives. While in Jacksonville, my father worked during the Great Depression delivering bread to grocery stores.

Sam Feldman, my mother's father, was a diminutive man with a harsh, rough voice who worked as a peddler in Wisconsin. He went from village to village with a horse and cart selling dry goods, utensils, some food items, and clothes. This occupation was profitable and served all the rural people well until Sears Roebuck started publishing a catalogue. Sam also served as the town crier and brought news to the people in these small towns. My mom says that their large family (five children) never lacked for anything. She used to say that she never knew anything about the Great Depression until she met my father.

My mother graduated from high school in Manitowoc, Wisconsin, and wanted to attend the University of Wisconsin, but her father, Sam Feldman, did not approve of girls going off to school by themselves. He insisted that she attend college in Oshkosh, Wisconsin, where she could live with relatives. Mom was rebellious, resisted, and went off to Jacksonville, Florida to work at Setzer's grocery store, which was owned by relatives, and she lived with relatives.

So it was at the grocery store in Jacksonville that my parents met. Soon thereafter they were married and moved to Montgomery, Alabama, as other relatives on my father's side were in Montgomery already. And thus I was born in Montgomery, where we lived on Felder Avenue, next door to Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald. My mom would see Zelda at the bank scribbling gibberish on notes while in line. In 1940 Montgomery was still talking about a party the Fitzgeralds gave years earlier, during which most of the invitees threw their lingerie on the fountain on Court Square in downtown Montgomery. The fountain was similar to the one on Piccadilly Circus in London. Montgomery had never seen anything like the Fitzgeralds and their wild lifestyle.

Because of the war and the uncertainty created by the military draft, Dad started a small grocery store on Grove Street. My parents initially rented a house on Felder Avenue but later bought a house at 914 National Street in Ridgecrest. Since my dad was not drafted until the end of the war, in 1945, he started a larger grocery store at the corner of Oak and Mill Streets, where he worked for the remainder of his working life. In the meantime, my brother Sheldon was born in 1942, and Harold was born in 1947. Every Friday my parents put ten dollars in a drawer to save for college. With that money they were able to educate two doctors and one lawyer.

I started kindergarten on Fairview Avenue across from Huntingdon College. Mrs. Ingalls, a parent of another child, took me to school every day. She had three children standing up in the backseat, three sitting down in the backseat, and three more standing up on the floor of the backseat. All nine of us were students at the same kindergarten. I also started kindergarten at Temple Beth Or on Sundays. That was when I had the first indication that I was color-blind to red and green, as are one out of twelve men. A girl in my class seemed to be upset that I colored a horse purple and called me an idiot.

After World War II, many parents felt the best education for their children was in a military school. In Montgomery there were two such schools, Starke University School and Hurt School. Because there was a large military population in Montgomery at Maxwell Air Force Base and Gunter Air Force Base, plenty of students were attending these schools. And so it was that I left the kindergarten years and enrolled in Starke School at the age of five.

Mrs. Fant was my teacher and would be my teacher in the second and fifth grades as well. There were only five of us in the first grade. Although some students boarded at the school, I continued to live at home with my family. This was truly an example of Necessary Losses as described in the book by Judith Viorst, as that separation from my parents was necessary but painful.

Our first grade class was in the same room as...