Aye,
captainsmiffy, that's a fine lookin' cabin boy ya got thar, Cap'n. O'er, now be bringin' him on down to me cabin... Ooops, wrong story! I take immense pleasure in giving the gift of laughter to others and am genuinely glad that you got some out of my tail/tale. I, too, find it to be highly amusing, but(t) it was certainly not at the time.
Salutations,
obgraham! I am given to understand that you have spent a number of years "fanny gazing" in your practice. I am therefore hugely complimented that you wonder if I am a surgeon. Unfortunately, the answer is no. I was accepted to Duke Medical School, but did not attend. Having become a father at the tender age of nineteen, I needed to make money, not spend it. (With the luxury of retrospection, I believe that to be the worst decision I ever made.) I do love medicine and consider it, along with flying, to be the favorite avocation to which I devote myself. My son is a physician; my first cousin a pathologist, my uncle an internist, and my grandfather, psychiatrist Dr. Edward Gayle, started the first privately owned sanitarium in the United States. No wonder I'm so crazy... When asked what she had done with her life, Dr. Gayle's wife, Annie, my favorite grandmother, would respond "I spent most of it in looney bins!" She wasn't lying!
Let's keep the laughter going, gentlemen!
- Ed
