At the age when most kids only saw the inside of a doctor’s office when they broke a bone, I had to go to the doctor for rather unusual reasons. I had a lump on my left knee that I tried to ignore until Mom called attention to it while I was wearing shorts one day. She sent me to Dr. Abbey, our family doctor on Main Street. He said he’d have to do surgery right there in his office to remove the gumball sized lump and have it tested for cancer. Since his nurse/wife was unavailable, Mom had to assist in the procedure which she found very interesting. “Look Marc. Look at the cyst Dr. Abbey removed from your leg. Isn’t it interesting?” Thankfully it wasn’t cancerous. In another doctor’s appointment to try to correct my sight, my eye doctor prescribed bifocals with prismatic lenses. Imagine a 12 year-old with thick bifocals? Embarrasssing! In the summer of 1965, when I was about to enter Junior High School as a 7th grader, I was really stressed out about my body. After all, I couldn’t play sports like everyone else and my eyesight was weird. I had cysts. I was always tripping over things, I stuttered, and I felt my body changing — into what, I don’t know. I knew I would be made to shower with others boys my age, and with everything else odd about me, I wasn’t sure I was anatomically normal. To make matters worse, the school district required all students to have a physical before entering middle school. My greatest fear was going to the doctors and having him find something wrong with me that would make me stand out out or otherwise embarrass me. Nothing made me happier than to find out after the physical I was normal and everything was okay. When I finally went to the showers I was gratified again to see that boys my age were at various stages of development — some had hair as thick as a rug on their bodies, which early on was embarrassing to them, but most boys were relatively hair-free like me. I learned after a while that going to the doctors was not a big deal. Sometimes they actually help me rather than contribute to my continuing lack of coolness.