Page:The Fun of It.pdf/37

Rh Cathedral. We three appeared to have a better view of the galloping moon shadows than anyone else in the world.

The only other eclipse of the sun I have seen was from the air. I was caught between the mainland and Catalina in the weird darkness of the phenome­non in 1924.

My knowledge of the passageways at Columbia has not yet proved useful, but that could be said of other things one learns at college, too.

It took me only a few months to discover that I probably should not make the ideal physician. Though I liked learning all about medicine, par­ticularly the experimental side, visions of its prac­tical application floored me. For instance, I thought among other possibilities of sitting at the bedside of a hypochondriac and handing out innocu­ous sugar pellets to a patient with an imaginary illness.

“If you’ll take these pills”, I heard myself say­ing in a professional tone, “the pain in your knee will be much less, if not entirely eliminated.”

This picture made me feel inadequate and in­ sincere. I did not see then that there was just as much of a problem in curing the somewhat men­ tally ill as those physically so—even though the methods used might differ.

But when you are young, you are apt to make important decisions for reasons that later on seem quite superficial. And I decided against medicine