Chapter 2
Just Another Wasted Youth
I had always planned to be a doctor. Medicine ran in the family. My grandfather, who died before my birth, became the first white doctor in the Dakotas and helped found the Mayo Clinic. My grandmother worked as a nurse. So, it seemed natural to me to follow their path. My dad on the other hand, wanted me to follow in his footsteps and become an advertising executive. As much as I admired his talent for coming up with catchy slogans, I had absolutely no interest in becoming a glorified salesman. Advertising had no life and death struggle. But, the thought of battling death the way doctors did, fascinated me.
I was very young when I first came into contact with death. Unlike many other children, illness and death held no horror for me. As a third grader, I helped my grandmother with her medications. When the other kids were hanging out at the playground, it was not unusual to find me at my favorite haunt, the funeral home.
I discovered the Wenban Funeral Home almost by accident. The winters in Lake Forest, Illinois were fiercely cold. Only 30 miles north of Chicago on Lake Michigan, we always caught the full force of the same bitter winter winds that made Chicago famous as “the windy city.” But even as a youngster, I refused to blithely accept extreme discomfort. I saw no reason to suffer if there was an alternative. This particular fall afternoon was blustery and biting cold. In an effort to escape the wind, I decided to cut through the showroom of the Wenban Buick dealership which lay along the route to my home. I ducked into the showroom to find that it was not only warmer, but also full of new Buicks. I wound a slow admiring path through the shiny new cars then stepped out the rear door and back into the teeth of the wind. Behind Wenban Buick, on a side street, I spotted the Wenban Funeral Home, and the promise of additional warmth. I knew George Wenban owned both establishments because my father had created their most memorable advertising campaign. He had made the Wenbans famous with the slogan “Buy a Buick or drop dead.”
The Funeral Home’s garage was open, so I scurried through the doorway to find a treasure trove parked inside. The new Buicks in the dealership had been interesting, but they were nothing compared to the fleet parked in the garage. There was a hearse, a limo, and even a flower van. I walked slowly around each one, examining every detail.
Then I saw it—the ambulance—complete with a shiny paint job and a huge rack of lights on top. I just stopped in my tracks and stared.
In a town as small as Lake Forest at that time, it was normal for the Funeral Home to have an ambulance, but I had never seen one close up before. Every detail of its design fascinated me.
The mortician, Sonny Wenban, found me there, mesmerized by the car. Fortunately, he understood, and instead of calling my parents, he let me sit in the front seat. I thought it was a perfect fit. I couldn’t wait for the time I would be old enough to drive one. Sonny assured me that I would be a good ambulance driver. I was determined to prove him right. Despite the difference in our ages, we developed a friendship based on our mutual appreciation of fine cars.
From the garage, it was only a short walk through the funeral parlor itself. It did not bother me that someone lay on display in the parlor. I did stop briefly to pay my respects—though it was mostly to see who was being mourned—then made my way out the front door. The detour proved to be not only warmer, but also a block shorter than my regular route home. Not to mention the fact that it had much greater scenic value.
As a result of this discovery, an almost daily visit to the Wenban Funeral home became part of my regular routine during the school year. As an Irish Catholic kid, I viewed death, and the wakes that inevitably followed, as just another excuse for grownups to drink and party. I saw dead bodies every day. Ambulance runs were much more interesting. If the ambulance passed nearby on a run, lights flashing and siren wailing, I always tried to follow it on my bike to get a look at the victim and watch the medics work.
Grandmother, who lived with us at the time, knew my heart. She was old, diabetic, and crippled but her mind remained sharp as a tack. She used to quiz me on medical terms to expand my vocabulary. Her nursing background made her a wonderful teacher. By the time I was nine she even let me give her the insulin shots myself. I felt like a real doctor.
My mother was not quite so understanding. She believed children should be protected from the harsh realities of life. As the youngest of three boys, I was the one of whom she felt most protective. She had no interest in the medical profession, and was definitely not a fan of what she referred to as my “ghoulish” behavior. Of course I did little to help myself in her eyes.
One day I got into trouble with the nuns at school. Not unusual by itself, but this time it was particularly bad. They called Mother. I knew I would need to do something nice for Mom to help redeem myself. After giving the dilemma some heavy thought, I realized that Dad always brought flowers home when he was in hot water, and it seemed to work. I knew Mom liked flowers, so I decided that flowers would be a proper apology for me, too. And I knew just where to get them.
It didn’t take me long to find the perfect bouquet, full of most of her favorite varieties. I took them home and handed them to her while making the proper noises of apology. Inside, I congratulated myself on my bright idea.
But instead of accepting my apology and forgiving me, her stern expression turned slowly darker as she examined the flowers, until her face was thunderous with fury. I couldn’t understand what was wrong. I knew I had chosen flowers she liked. Then I realized the problem. I had forgotten to remove the sympathy card.
Even on later occasions when I carefully selected what I was certain were normal type flowers and made certain to remove any incriminating cards, somehow Mother always knew I had “borrowed” them from the funeral home. She made it very clear that she did not approve of children—especially her children—hanging around the funeral home like “ghouls.” Since neither of my brothers were involved, that could only mean me. For the most part I ignored her comments and simply tried not to draw her attention to my activities. What she didn’t know couldn’t hurt.
But I forgot my plan one night at dinner, in my eagerness to join in the otherwise adult conversation. Mom always loved to hear any news about anyone she knew, but when the talk turned to such gossip, I usually felt left out, since I never willingly chose to spend time with most of Mother’s friends. That particular evening I grew tired of being ignored. Everyone else droned on at great lengths about people and places of no interest to me. Even my brothers, Fred and Jeff seemed to have something witty to say. Finally, I had had enough.
“Hey Mom,” I interrupted, “I saw your friend, Mrs. Miller, today.”
“Oh really? How did she look?” Mom was always concerned with appearances. In this case, it was easy to tell the truth.
“Real good. She looked real good.”
“Did she have anything to say?”
“Not to me,” I answered around a mouthful of mashed potatoes. “They were just wheeling her into the viewing room.”
After that, Mom started picking me up after school on her way to the A & P for dinner. It marked the end of my daily visits to the Wenban’s Funeral Home, but not the end of my love affair with medicine.
Fortunately for me, my older brother Fred shared some of my interests. By the time I was in eighth grade, Fred started spending his breaks from college working as a volunteer fireman and an ambulance driver. It didn’t take long for me to convince him to let me go along. At first, I just observed, but by the time I turned 14 and started high school, I had received my advanced Red Cross First Aid Certificate and began working as a full-scale ambulance attendant on weekends.
By the time I was 16, I was considered one of the more experienced ambulance drivers on the North Shore. I worked for Village Ambulance Service. It was the perfect job—every teenage boy’s dream—I had a legal right to drive fast and feel good about it. I was definitely the only kid in town with his own ambulance parked in the high school lot. Better yet, the emergencies didn’t stop just because I was in school. Many times I was beeped to go on a call in the middle of class. Of course I had to rush to the rescue while leaving my poor classmates behind. It worked so well that I occasionally arranged to have the Highland Park answering service beep me even when no emergency actually existed.
This was particularly effective in the middle of exams, especially the ones for which I had neglected to prepare.
Beep! Beep!
“Excuse me, Mrs. Jameson, I have to go.”
“Mr. McPartlin, it’s the middle of the test! You can’t just leave!”
“Sorry, ma’am. I am sure the victim would be willing to wait to be rescued until I finish your test.”
“Very well, Mr. McPartlin. You may go. But I expect you to be available for a make-up exam tomorrow!”
Somehow I usually found a way around the makeup exam as well. Not so good for my grades, but great for my ego and peace of mind.
The owner of Village Ambulance Service was notoriously cheap. Rather than pay more medics, he cut a deal that allowed volunteer corpsmen from the Great Lakes Naval Hospital to ride along for the experience. Some of these corpsmen were being groomed for service in Vietnam. The rest would end up as bedpan washers somewhere. Their fate would depend on how they handled themselves in emergency situations. The Navy needed these corpsmen tested and evaluated by a professional and I, a 17-year-old high-school kid, was the professional doing the evaluations. Fortunately I looked older than my years.
If looks were not enough, I had an ace in my pocket, literally. My oldest brother Jeff, four years my senior, had managed to “lose” his driver’s license—and on his twenty first birthday of all things. I never told him I had found it. So, if anyone decided to check, I needed only open my wallet to show proof that I was 21.
By the mid-sixties Fred had graduated from college and become a Marine Corps Aviator. He was my hero, tough, smart, and a Marine pilot. Fred trained all over the country in preparation for deployment to Vietnam. He was an A-4 pilot, the best of the best. I was very proud of him. Whenever he came home, he would give me his old Marine Corps t-shirts. I wore them everywhere, wanting everyone to know that my brother was a Marine. Even better if they thought they were mine.
For myself, I hadn’t given the military or Vietnam much thought. My GPA in school was certainly not going to get me a Rhode’s Scholarship. Athletic scholarships were out of the question as well. Notre Dame thought the Irish jigs from the south side were more desperate to play football than those of us from the north shore ivy leagues. My family didn’t have the money to send me outright, so for me, college was pretty much out of the picture. The fact that the only other choice was the draft, did not occur to me.
It didn’t help that my attitude toward authority was anything but commendable. I couldn’t take the teachers seriously when they seemed so far away from the real life I experienced as an ambulance driver. What did calculus or grammar have to do with life and death? Such knowledge did not keep my customers alive. Most of my teachers knew I used my job to avoid class, but there was little they could do about it. By the time graduation rolled around, I had had enough of school and school had had enough of me.
Dean O’Dair, who was probably as glad to see me go as I was to leave, wrote a touching note in my Lake Forest High School yearbook: “Good luck, you’ll need it. You’ll probably be the first in your class killed in Vietnam.”
I mustered an absolutely serious expression and thanked him for a very touching send off. Later that night, I backed over his mailbox.