Boundaries

BOUNDARIES - Coming of Age in Two College Towns is a memoir written by a prominent vascular surgeon and clinical scientist. It portrays the exhilaration and pain of passing through the many boundaries facing children and adolescents in the middle of the last century. Although those times were often labeled the country's "happy days", there was often an undercurrent of angst in the author's life. Conflict, imagined and real, ranging from his unplanned conception to his father's...
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BOUNDARIES - Coming of Age in Two College Towns is a memoir written by a prominent vascular surgeon and clinical scientist. It portrays the exhilaration and pain of passing through the many boundaries facing children and adolescents in the middle of the last century. Although those times were often labeled the country's "happy days", there was often an undercurrent of angst in the author's life. Conflict, imagined and real, ranging from his unplanned conception to his father's interference in his medical school application colored his personality. Nothing was easy. Academic success in high school was offset by coming up short as an athlete, and hurtful criticism from a college teacher was hard to accept. All of this became the underpinning of the author's drive to not be a failure. Rebuilding and restoring an old car that was a classic was followed by a horrendous crash, and seeing friends swap comfort for alcohol until death interceded, were reminders of how precarious life could be. The most joyful boundaries surrounded courting and marriage, but they too carried risks. As he grew up in East Lansing, the author was surrounded by neighbors who were professors. That made listening, seeing, and learning easy, with a sense that nothing should be off limits or out of reach. Nevertheless, boundaries made by others were frequently laced with a bias that often caused gut-wrenching discomfort that was impossible to ignore. As college days passed in Ann Arbor, the author dismissed the country's Cold War demand for allegiance and found peace in leaving engineering to pursue a career in medicine. Those reading this book will depart with a sense that how the young cross boundaries as they become of age has a profound influence on how they will live the rest of their days.