Friday, January 10, 2020
I vividly recall my first meeting with Gordon; it was 1960. I was in my second year of a minimum four-year stint, one of three pathologists at the USAF hospital in Wiesbaden, Germany. It was a Sunday afternoon, and I encountered a doctor in a hallway, wearing a white coat over his uniform, but I did not recognize him as a member of the staff. After mutual introductions, he told me that it was indeed the first day of his two-years of medical duty as a reservist Internist——there was a doctor draft---- and that was how I had come to have the privilege of meeting him.
He looked a bit harried. The hospital’s Medical Department had been short staffed for a considerable time, and the regular-officer Internists had not been able to go on leave for a while. So as soon as Gordon showed up, they departed, leaving Gordon with twenty-eight new patients to care for; he was learning about them as fast as he could. After expressing my sympathy, I told him I would be happy to get to know him and give him some pointers about life in Germany.
My wife Iris and I invited the Bensons to dinner at our home, and we met his lovely wife, Fran. It was evident that they were exceptionally nice people, and we struck up a friendship over the next two years that we have treasured and which has endured for nearly sixty years. Though we lived a country apart, the Bensons in New Jersey, Bala Cynwyd and Church Hill, Maryland after Gordon retired, and we in San Francisco, Tiburon and Napa, California, we visited each other many times.
The air base had an excellent woodwork shop, and I introduced Gordon to my hobby and coached him with his first creation, a beautiful teak coffee table. He was obviously talented, and he did superb woodworking after he retired. He sent me pictures of some beautiful end tables that he had made, and a year ago he sent me a cutting board he made of three contrasting woods, one of which was from an old oak tree that had to be removed from the grounds of their first house. The board is so beautiful that I will never lay a knife on it. Clearly the student surpassed the teacher!
The property in Church Hill was on the eastern shore of Chesapeake Bay, on the water, and it was spectacular. They bought a house with water access and enlarged and remodeled it into a beautiful home, complete with acres of vegetables and fruit tress, beautiful landscaping with many flowers, and a sailboat made fast to a pier, a stone’s throw from their back door. Fran worked right alongside Gordon, and she was in charge of the flowers.
Gordon was a perfectionist in his medical work and research, and he attained the same perfection in everything he did. Apparently, teaching physical diagnosis to medical students after he retired, tending their large garden with Fran by his side, and doing woodworking in his spare time, was not enough to occupy him, so he became an amateur apiarist; of course, his honey won first prize every year. He sent us some each year, and it was truly delicious.
It’s hard to say goodbye to such a close friend. I (my wife Iris passed away five years ago) grieve him, as do Fran and his three boys. I will miss Gordon, our visits and our phone and email chats, but I am happy that I will have lovely Fran to carry on our splendid friendship.
So Gordon, dear old friend, I bid you farewell. And if there is a place where we go after we leave this earth, I’m sure you have already noticed many things there that need perfecting.
With love,
Joe (Joseph D Sabella MD)
1500 Old York Road, Abington, PA
