Annals of Long Term Care

I do love being a doctor, but have over the years managed to maintain my hobbies. Apparently, this is good for healthy aging—both physical and mental, not to speak of one’s marriage after retirement. Speaking of avocations, although I have strummed a guitar and sung for many years now, it has been a long time since I played a gig in front of a gaggle of summer camp counselors—all of them age 17 to 25 years. Of course, I used to do this quite frequently, but that was when I was 17 to 25 years old. Over the ensuing years, I have occasionally performed, usually with the reluctant but melodious help of my wife. In those cases, however, it was always in front of a less chronologically challenged audience.

But one night last summer was different, and I found that I had inadvertently entered a kind of time warp. Who says that there is no such thing as time travel? Having just entered my 7th decade, it has been at least 45 years since I last played for an audience exclusively at the delicate age of camp staff, but this little performance did take me briefly back in time.

As chief medical officer at a children’s summer camp in the wilds of Canada, my main duties were to deal with bumps, scratches, sprains, home sickness, and the occasional undisplaced fracture. I was, of course, also on call for more serious events such as (God forbid!) drowning, electrocution, serious trauma, and bee sting allergy. Fortunately for all of us, of these more serious threats, I only had to deal with hymenoptera anaphylaxis. One might with some justice ask, given the fact that I am now a geriatrician, how it was that I found myself looking after children. Fortunately for us all, I began my career as a family doctor and despite the years, apparently have not forgotten too many of the basics.

Beyond my clinical persona, I find that as camp doctor I am sort of like the Invisible Man—albeit not nearly as scary. As far as the kids are concerned, I am just an elderly guy up in the infirmary whom only the more neurotic or physically ill ever get to meet. Although I do join the camp minions thrice daily in the mess hall for meals, I am hardly one of the boys. I am the proverbial fly on the wall, buzzing in from another time and place.

Someone once said that the past is another country. How true that is. These kids are in so many ways different from what we were like. First of all, when I went to camp it was in the 60s. Need I say more? Our generation still read newspapers made from trees not electrons, and we could recognize and even dial a rotary phone. Of course, there were no personal computers, and the closest thing to a handheld device was your girlfriend’s hand. We had no iPods, no Internet, no e-mail (ah, those were the days!). Of course, there was music (did I already mention the 60s?), and, fortunately, there still is, although I don’t recognize it all, despite being the proud owner of three kids, one of whom is still a teenager.

Given my relative social isolation, how did I know anything about music at camp? Well, as I have been the doctor there for several years now, some of the music staff knows I play and have lent me a guitar whenever I have asked. A few of the kinder ones even occasionally come to my cabin to jam. Otherwise I have nothing to do with the musical activities there. But when one of them politely—and a bit tentatively—invited me to play a piece at the “Coffee House” they were organizing for staff recreation, how could I refuse? In fact, when had I last heard the term “Coffee House”? (Have I already mentioned the 60s?)

Dan, one of the music staff and a very fine musician, was even kind enough to offer to accompany me, perhaps rightly sensing that I might be a bit shy to get up in front of all those kids on my own.