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    It’S Only Money-Memory Is the True Value: Musings of a Journey Past
    It’S Only Money-Memory Is the True Value: Musings of a Journey Past
    It’S Only Money-Memory Is the True Value: Musings of a Journey Past
    Ebook177 pages1 hour

    It’S Only Money-Memory Is the True Value: Musings of a Journey Past

    By Harold A. Fonroe M.D. F.A.C.P.

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    Author Harold A. Fonroses story, as presented here in his memoir, evolves as a historical perspective of a young male arriving in a humble environment of Caribbean culture in Trinidad, British West Indies along with his sister after the death of their mother. There, under the guidance of his paternal grandmother, ambitions and musings began as he was exposed to the characteristics of determination, discipline, and sustained diligence. These attributes became embedded and forged his decision to enter the structured profession of medicine, to which he later made major contributions in the realm of geriatric thinking.

    Fonrose is firmly convinced that these similar, average characteristics are available to each and every subset of people and culture. This journey is not about the individual; it is about the memories.

    With regard to the title of the book, there is no attempt to be either dismissive or derisive. But he has a certain degree of contempt for people who genuflect at the altar of money, thereby assuming a posture of kneeling and worship with their eyes fixed to the ground, missing or intentionally avoiding the positive vision of a distant horizon.

    That general statement is embedded in the title Its Only Money ... Memory is the True Value.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisheriUniverse
    Release dateFeb 15, 2012
    ISBN9781469709352
    It’S Only Money-Memory Is the True Value: Musings of a Journey Past
    Author

    Harold A. Fonroe M.D. F.A.C.P.

    Dr. Harold A. Fonrose obtained his medical degree from Howard University College of Medicine in 1958. He is board-certified in internal medicine and worked in New York until 1998. He and his wife, Betty, have four sons and live in retirement in Melbourne, Florida.

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      Book preview

      It’S Only Money-Memory Is the True Value - Harold A. Fonroe M.D. F.A.C.P.

      It’s Only Money—

      Memory Is the True Value

      Musings of a Journey Past

      Harold A. Fonrose, M.D., F.A.C.P.

      iUniverse, Inc.

      Bloomington

      It’s Only Money—Memory Is the True Value
      Musings of a Journey Past

      Copyright © 2012 by Harold A. Fonrose, M.D., F.A.C.P.

      All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

      iUniverse books may be ordered through booksellers or by contacting:

      iUniverse

      1663 Liberty Drive

      Bloomington, IN 47403

      www.iuniverse.com

      1-800-Authors (1-800-288-4677)

      Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

      Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

      Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

      ISBN: 978-1-4697-0934-5 (sc)

      ISBN: 978-1-4697-0936-9 (hc)

      ISBN: 978-1-4697-0935-2 (ebk)

      iUniverse rev. date: 02/05/2012

      Cover photo of Four Roads Trolley by Stephen Dalla Costa.

      Contents

      Dedication 

      Foreword 

      Prologue 

      THE JOURNEY 

      The Formative Years 

      THE MIDDLE YEARS 

      The Academic Years 

      The Professional Years 

      Photographs And Memories 

      THE FORMATIVE YEARS

      THE MIDDLE YEARS

      THE ACADEMIC YEARS

      THE PROFESSIONAL YEARS

      RECOGNITION AND APPRECIATION 

      Epilogue 

      FINAL THOUGHTS 

      BIBLIOGRAPHY AND REFERENCES 

      Dedication 

      This dedication is intended for women in general but two specifically:

      My grandmother in this sense is a main personage. Her personality infuses the beginning of my formative years in such force that she stands as the point of departure to the recent past and on to the present.

      Of similar but different importance is my wife, Betty. Betty joined the journey in 1956. From that moment my life’s narrative assumed a different form. My studies and performance in medical school became more structured and probably increased in performance. Certainly the financial aid provided greater stability. As the time passed, her role in forming the present family cannot be overestimated.

      Indeed, Betty’s role could not be overstated. There is her constant presence since joining the journey in medical school and the multi-tasking role of initiating a family-focus with four sons and the burgeoning activity of a wide-ranging professional career to its completion of my medical leadership as a medical director.

      My favorite memory is an early snapshot of her at the beginning of the family circle where she is reading to two of the younger children. Her concentration and focus symbolizes her structural role in a six-member family. Indeed, there is no overstatement of the positive impact throughout the journey since joined in 1956.

      Further, Betty’s contribution to the book over the past four to five months has been outstanding. Several of the sections were read to her for testing the validity and the completeness of any ideas expressed. Frequently, she would add instances to improve both the structure and content of the narrative.

      Indeed the journey became our journey to what is now a 55-year partnership. The co-dedication is both natural and complete in terms of Betty and her contribution to this book.

      Foreword 

      The fact that Dr. Fonrose (Harold) would commit to chronicle his life to ink is remarkable! For to know him, and I’ve had the privilege of knowing him now for decades, is to know a man who is fiercely private and focused on his life’s work. He is not one who lives in the past or who seeks validation of himself. His writing reflects an objective, almost clinical, reporting of his life’s journey.

      In this regard, Dr. Fonrose does not dwell on the era in which he grew up or the personal circumstances that forged his character. For him, that was not the point of his writing. His was simply a personal effort to capture memories evoked from photographs he had collected over the years. It is up to you, the reader, to appreciate the times in which he grew to be a man and the challenges of becoming a board certified doctor.

      He made no excuses for himself along his journey and always kept his bar high for the standards he set for himself. His formative years were marked with some sadness and separation—the death of his mother at a young and impressionable age, leaving his immediate family and the familiar surroundings of home, his transplant from the urban environment of Brooklyn to the tropics of the humble home of his paternal grandmother in Trinidad. He made the adjustment in stride. Under the care and watchful, no-nonsense discipline of his grandmother, aunt and uncle, he was deeply imprinted with a sense of self-sufficiency and work ethic. Education was highly valued by his family and he was sent to the best school on the island that his family could afford.

      Returning to the United States and completing his service in the Navy, Dr. Fonrose locked and loaded on a vision to become a board certified medical practitioner—a vision his late mother had planted in him early as a young child. Armed only with discipline and determination, Dr. Fonrose struck out along this long and lonely path with little support, encouragement, or financial wherewithal. The journey to becoming a doctor is arduous in and of itself. Compound that effort with that of being a black man of meager means in the early 1960s having to run the gauntlet of a medical board in Birmingham, Alabama at the height of the Civil Rights movement and in the heart of Jim Crow practices.

      While Dr. Fonrose’s purpose is to chronicle his memories over his life’s journey, my hope is that you, the reader, will appreciate and take a lesson from a man whose vision and focus enabled him to overcome the personal and societal challenges of his time. Failure to him was not an option. He demonstrated resilience in the face of many obstacles.

      I feel blessed that he has long been a part of my family’s life—even before my early awareness through my mother—Beryl—who also had a deep respect for his potential and encouraged him to pursue his vision. I respect and admire him for his wisdom and all that he has accomplished over his journey. I thank him for his support and guidance along my journey. I hope you—the reader—can take a lesson from his "Memory".

      To%20be%20inserted%20in%20FOREWORD%20-%20Shelley%20Johnson%20headshot.jpg

      —Shelley Johnson

      Prologue 

      The initiating impulse for this project came from a chance viewing of scattered pictures and snapshots, which coincided with the years throughout my journey to express several stages of the passage of time.

      Could any or all of them serve as a stimulus or memory to produce a smile, wry or fleeting, or to stimulate an emotion including full-throated laughter on the issue raised? Why not record the event, the memory, the recall that led to this remembrance of things past?

      That concept has evolved into a journey—from the past to the present and on to the future.

      * * *

      I was always attracted to the connectability of things to each other, and it explains to me the virtue of chance in addition to merit. The idea of being in the right place at the right time certainly has always appealed to me philosophically; while one can be prepared for something, it seems like there is no force behind it, only the continuity of living.

      The timeframe of my journey is divided into four segments to aid description—the formative years, the middle years, the academic years, and the professional years—but each phase is seductively entwined with the former phase, each building on a prior phase, aiding in the integrity of each passing phase.

      This desire to maintain a central theme of connectability, memory, and stimuli are stressed and emphasized in Swann’s Way from Remembrance of Things Past by Marcel Proust, which hopefully serves as a template for this narration. In

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