Thirkill and McKerrow Elementarys, Tappan Jr High

Following graduation from University of Detroit Dental School, I joined the US Air Force, and was assigned to Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. I fell in love with the California lifestyle, but before I had a chance to really appreciate it, they sent me to Vietnam. I had begun to return to my Jewish life, and keeping kosher was impossible on base. When I requested permission to live off base, the base commander said " How you gonna keep Kosher, boy, when we send your ass to Vietnam." He was right. So much for that. I spent a year at the 366th Wing Hospital in Danang and shared an officers' quarters with a regular Mash type unit. For a doctor, a war zone is like a Dicken's Quote: "It was the best of times; It was the worst of times." Obviously, war is horrible, but for medical training, it is a classroom for learning about ones' self and for expanding your medical skills. exponentially. Some of the finest doctors came out of Vietnam. One of my fellow "inmates in the asylum" (to quote Billy Joel) was Dr Toby (Delos) Cosgrove, a renowned Cardiovascular Surgeon, who is now the CEO of the Cleveland Clinic. He was my role model, my mentor, and made me want to become the best dental practitioner I could be. Together, we served in numerous volunteer medical missions in the villages around Danang. In 1970, I received the Air Force Commendation Medal and the Vietnam Medal of Honor for providing dentistry to the children and villagers of the Hoa Vang District under hazardous conditions. To me, this was the most meaningful part of my military service. Following my Air Force tour, I returned home to establish a dental practice in Warren, unable to move to California because both of my parents developed cancer and I was needed at home. After practicing for 6 years as a GP, I returned to U of D to finally specialize in Endodontics, a field of Dentistry I really enjoyed. I practiced in Southfield, Bingham Farms, and Farmington Hills until I retired in 2002 for health reasons. I have always enjoyed teaching dentistry and have been on Faculty at U of D since 1970. Since Retirement, I have expanded my duties at the school, and I am teaching in the undergraduate and residency programs. I have done research and authored articles and textbook chapters on Endodontic Surgery, as well as other topics. Dentistry has been very good to me, and allowed me to enjoy many other aspects of life. I taught at U of D until came in, and now I give only one surgery lecture per year. My health has been my major concern of course at age 79 with both knees replaced and a recent shoulder replacement which have ended my playing golf. But i am still upright as all of at the reunion are.

In addition to a full career practicing and teaching Dentistry, I managed to save time for my many other interests in life. Life is an adventure, and goes by too fast, so I packed as much in as I could. One of my loves is music, especially Jazz and Classical, and that has been my greatest regret, not playing an instrument. Only CD's.
My earliest hobby was Photography, which led to my working on the Mumford newspaper. After I returned from Vietnam, where I photographed the people and landscape, not the war, I rafted the Grand Canyon, an experience of a lifetime which rekindled my interest in photography. I met Ansel Adams at the DIA in 1979, and ended up studying with him at Yosemite in 1981. His influence led me to fine art photography, and I had numerous showings of my black and white images in the 80's. He was such a major influence on me that I named my son after him. I recently photographed the Jazz artist, Matt Michaels for the cover cover of his latest CD. However, Dentistry paid better, and digital photography changed the art for me in a negative way. I now am a snapshooter, but I love Photoshop. I enjoyed cross-country skiing and kickboxing aerobics until I blew out both knees, but now I swim for exercise. Diane and I spend the summers at our home on Torch Lake, boating, fishing, cold-water swimming, and no longer playing an occasional round of golf. In 1983, Diane and I went to the Alpha Omega Jewish Dental Fraternity meeting in Israel and then spent an incredible 10 days touring Israel just at the beginning of the first Intifada. Somewhat scary. Then at a trip to Paris in 1993, I became interested in wine collecting and have a varied wine cellar specializing in Spanish, California, French and Australian wines. I belong to several wine clubs which date back to the 60's and were started by Lester Gruber at the London Chop House. Life is good. How lucky we are!

Five Grandchildren:
From Joey and Laura,
Elliot age 10, Wyatt age 7, Kent age 4, and Harriet age 1
From Jessica,
Grace Louise, age 5

I have special memories of two of the greatest teachers I have ever had: Aaron Gornbein, and Walter Goodman. They started my interest in current affairs and politics, and I still read the New York Times daily because of them. Whoever can forget the Mock Democratic Convention, and growing up in the Kennedy era, a time that forever changed our lives? I helped managed the Lyndon Johnson campaign at our mock convention, which led to my meeting him in Washington when he was Veep.That was exciting. Our senior trip to Washington led to Mumford being persona-non grata in DC for a few years following an event when someone in the class water bombed the Ambassador from Chili from a balcony while President Kennedy was waiting for him at the White House. They never got to meet! And I remember a public speaking class when I had to debate Sam Bernstein, and I had no one to call!! This interest in politics led me into the Teen Dems. As much as I enjoyed the political word for a while (remember Jack Faxon) , the Teen Dems was a great place to meet girls. But I was too naive to appreciate much of that aspect of it.

I always loved photography and spent much of my Mumford life taking pictures for the Mercury or working in the darkroom Our photo group, headed by Stanley Ormsby included such luminaries as Jerry Bruckheimer, Mark Diem, Larry Goulson, and others. Naturally, Jerry turned out the most famous of all. At a football game with Cass Tech, Jerry was shooting for the Capri, and I was taking photos for the Mercuy. Cliff Franzell, who died young, barreled into us while tackling the Cass reciever and I went flying, Speed Graphic flew in the air, and I missed the shot. But Jerry stood his ground and got a great image of the tackle with a cheerleader, Susie Deutch, right next to the players. Typical Bruckheimer excellence or luck. Multi Billionaire but he never came to a reunion!
(The photo is in the 1961 Capri) I do have a Mercury clipping showing that in the Ansco Photo Scholastic Contest, I came in second place, Jerry Bruckheimer won honorable mention. The only time in life that I bested him!