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Stories from Steve

STORIES FROM STEVE: SWOON SONG

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Swoon Song

by Steve Goldfinger

During four years of medical school, I saw classmates faint three times. They went down so suddenly and unexpectedly that I was certain they had tripped on something.  But no, there had been nothing near them to trip on.

My most vivid memory of such a swoon dates back to our first year, indeed our first encounter with a patient. And to the everlasting embarassment of Shirley Dalling, the swoonee, the entire class was witness to her fall. Shirley, one of the 11 women in our class of 120, was on center stage that afternoon.

The setting was one of those large steeply banked amphitheaters with about 10 rows of eager students waiting to meet a real patient. Presiding over the encounter was the legendary Dr. Yale Kneeland, Jr., tall in his long white coat and exuding the great charm that typified his privileged nature. His first name said it all.

He greeted us with a few condescending words. Then, in his unmistakable baritone,  he boomed, “Please wheel in our patient.”

Doors slid behind the floor of the amphitheater and an attendant pushed in a gurney. Lying flat on it was a man, perhaps in his fifties, with one noteworthy feature – a greatly protruding belly easily perceived through the sheet that draped it.

“This is Mr. O’Brien, colleagues,” said Dr. Kneeland before turning to Mr. O’Brien to add, “This is a rather large group of young doctors.”

He went on. “Now I would like to have a volunteer to come up and examine

Mr. O’Brien. How about you?” he demanded of Shirley who was sitting quietly in the first row, not daring to raise her hand.

He brought her to the side of the gurney and then introduced her to the patient in his usual mellifluous style.

“Now, my young friends, because of his liver problem Mr.O’Brien has accumulated a very large amount of fluid in his abdomen.” He removed the sheet. “By palpating his abdomen, you can actually feel the fluid, like jelly being pushed around inside.

Miss Dalling, would you be good enough to push on Mr. O’Brien’s belly?”

Shirley did so…and immediately dropped to the floor, a sack of jelly herself.

End of demonstration.

Kneeland knew exactly what to do. Totally poised and in a clear voice, he asked that the patient be wheeled out through the doors behind them.

I remember Mr. O’Brien’s words as he slipped through the doors.

“How’s the young doctor?”

“Stories from Steve” feature writer Steve Goldfinger

Since joining BOLLI a few years ago, after a long career in medicine, Steve has been exploring his artistic side.  He has been active in both the Writers Guild and CAST (Creativity in Acting, Storytelling, and Theatre) as well as the Book Group and more!

Stories from Steve

STORIES FROM STEVE: AT THE MOVIES

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As Steve Goldfinger has been one of our most prolific BOLLI Matters writers, we thought it only fitting that we give him his own feature for his blend of memoir and creative nonfiction writing.  Welcome to the stable, Steve!

AT THE MOVIES

by Steve Goldfinger

My fright alarm went off for the first time when I was three years old.   It was my first movie, and the picture, my parents later told me, was Pinocchio.  It was Stromboli who caused me to shriek and them to carry me out to the lobby and then home.

Little has changed since then when it comes to my shriek alarm.  I left The Deer Hunter when  the Russian roulette scene had the soldier pointing a gun to his temple. I knew enough to never even try to watch Jaws or Psycho. If I had known about the bathtub scene at the end of Diabolique, I would have been spared that episode of chest pain and tachycardia. I was brave enough to join friends to see Fatal Attraction–but not without a blue woolen sweater to cover my eyes at the scene they warned  me would be coming. I adjusted the pull length on the sweater to obtain a suitably gauzy image, but this maneuver prevented me from stuffing my ears to quench the music as it amped and crescendoed at the same time.

Much as I would try to imagine an orchestra on the set (ridiculous!) or a director in a chair in front of the actors and a hanging microphone just above their heads but cut away, it never worked . I just got too rapt up and would totally suspend any whiff of disbelief.

A sequel to the Saw series, a horror movie for the the films’ avid followers, will be released just before Halloween–concocted by none other than my own Peter Goldfinger and his writing partner, Josh Stohlberg.  How could such a thing happen?

It is not Pete’s first venture into the horror genre.  He is married to Jen Jostyn who had a lead role in House of a Thousand Corpses; and  yes, its producer, named Rob Zombie, remains one of their close friends.  A while back, the Pete and Josh duo wrote Sorority Row and Pirhana-3D which outdid Jaws by about a hundred mutilations, most of them attractive coeds being plucked from a lake and halved by huge scaly carnivores. The lake gradually reddened as the action progressed.

When I arrived to visit Pete in Los Angeles, he told me it was my lucky day–I could come on the set when they were filming Sorority Row.   The nude scene.  Well, maybe that wouldn’t be so bad.   I discovered that viewing a horror movie in the flesh, so to speak, wasn’t really that upsetting.  Not at all horrible.

So I await the pre-Halloween event. The title of this one is Jig Saw. I’ve seen a few trailers on my iPad.  And I’m saving my blue woolen sweater for the real thing.

Frequent BOLLI Matters writer Steve Goldfinge

Since joining BOLLI nearly three years ago, after a long career in medicine, Steve has been exploring his artistic side.  He has taken writing classes and participated in the Writers Guild throughout but has also taken part in CAST and the Book Group.