Moving to Rochester in 1995

Late in 1994 we were living in Omaha, Nebraska, and I was working as an Assistant Professor at the University of Nebraska Medical Center. It was a great job in a fun place. It was kind of ironic, because not too many years before, I had been making fun of my brother, Rob, for being “stuck” in Nebraska while my family was feeling smug during my postdoctoral fellowship at Caltech in Pasadena. I think he had the last laugh when my best job offer in 1991 came from another Nebraska institution, bringing us about an hour from him.

In 1994 a younger friend from my postdoctoral days mentioned having visited the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, on a job interview. He knew our roots were in Madison, and Rochester was a lot nearer to Wisconsin than Nebraska. With two young daughters, the distance (eight hours in a minivan, playing the same audio or video tapes over and over) was a challenge. He mentioned that the Mayo Clinic had a surprisingly large research program (that neither of us had ever heard about), and that they were generous with their resources.

For some reason, though I was plenty happy in Omaha, I sent a copy of my resume to the Mayo Clinic. Specifically, I sent it to Dr. Larry Miller, who was heading a committee seeking to build a new research team of scientists interested in gene therapy. Mayo Clinic was calling the program “Molecular Medicine.” That was kind of humorous, since practically all biomedical scientists are engaged in “molecular medicine,” but this was my first experience with the Mayo Clinic tradition of giving a fancy name to something that is actually not so fancy.

Dr. Larry Miller was a charming physician-scientist with a thick moustache. He worked in gastroenterology and did research. Dr. Larry Miller wasn’t really sure how they were going to recruit their team of “Molecular Medicine” experts. The initial strategy could be summarized as “one-at-a-time.” It later turned out that this strategy was inadequate, and a more successful strategy involved recruiting British team leader Dr. Steve Russell, who anchored recruitment of an impressive international group. But we get ahead of ourselves.

Dr. Larry Miller was trying to get the first scientist or two to sign on. I remember looking at the highway map one evening in Omaha, trying to figure out where Rochester was. It was only about 3 hours from Madison, and Laura and I were enchanted to see that it lay on Highway 14, a curving route that wandered through La Crosse and eventually became University Avenue, the main street in Middleton, Wisconsin, the Madison suburb where we had grown up. Quaint.

Dr. Larry Miller arranged to meet me at the airport for a visit. He had a nice car, and impressed me with a beautiful pastoral drive through the country for about 10 miles before we burst into downtown Rochester and found the Mayo Clinic. Rochester is a lot smaller than Omaha, Nebraska, and this also felt quaint. Dr. Miller pointed out along the way back to the airport (also through the pastoral country route) that he lived in a lovely wooded area, near the famed Mayowood Mansion. This provided another inviting introduction to Rochester.

I wasn’t convinced that “Molecular Medicine” was exactly the right fit for what we did in my laboratory research, but I remained intrigued with some of the very generous aspects of Mayo’s employment package. I agreed to visit a second time.

Dr. Larry Miller again met me with his nice car, we drove the lovely agricultural route into Rochester, and we had a bunch of meetings. On this trip Dr. Miller took time to drive me around town a bit, and I saw some attractive neighborhoods. Toward the end of the time, Dr. Miller kindly took me to his home for a snack, and a view of a beautiful pastoral valley, framed in his picture window.

“Just look at it,” he said, gazing at the green farm fields and a new sub-division sneaking into the valley. “They told me this would be farmland forever…now look at those houses down there.”

I could tell from his tone that he was just slightly disgusted about the suburban sprawl, so I steered the conversation to his nice custom home, and whether he had deer in his yard and things like that. Soon it was time to head back through the farmlands to the Rochester International Airport.

I think there was a third trip to Rochester, and I met with a different set of scientists seeking to recruit a new faculty member to the more traditional “Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology.” This turned out to be a better fit. Dr. Eric Wieben helped with the recruitment, but I think Dr. Larry Miller continued to do most of the shuttling to and from the airport. I thought that was very nice, if slightly weird.

To make a long story short, we decided to move to Rochester. I remember one evening when we made the final decision about whether to sell our house in Omaha. I even had to call the Mayo Clinic administrator, a Mr. Ames Putnam (I love that name), to confirm that there really was a job offer waiting for me. The whole thing seemed pretty informal, and the Omaha move seemed pretty irrevocable.

Two particularly humorous episodes were associated with the actual process of moving to Rochester. The first involved driving my research group from Omaha in order to get their impressions of this Minnesota city where I had decided to relocate. The goal was to convince as many group members as possible to sign onto the move and maintain lab momentum.

We arrived one summer afternoon in a caravan of cars. It was about 100 degrees. We drove up Highway 63, the Broadway of Rochester. We passed the international airport, and I then realized (for the first time) that Highway 63 continued straight, whereas Dr. Larry Miller had always gone a “different way” that wound through the countryside. I didn’t think much of it until I started to behold the true character of south Broadway heading into Rochester. This route conveyed a singularly unimpressive and somewhat seedy message about Rochester—a string of discount motels, muffler shops, a tattoo parlor or two, a bar or two. . .or three. There on the right was a large scrap metal yard. One could see Mayo Clinic buildings in the distance, but my students were preoccupied with silently surveying this dumpy welcome to Rochester. I could swear I had never seen this city before. I think I even said that out loud with a kind of lame laugh.

I was stunned. Dr. Larry Miller had steered clear of this blight through all of his cleverly-orchestrated tour guiding. Well done, Dr. Miller, search committee chairman.

I had already accepted the job.

I was starting to seriously think about back-tracking and looking for the Dr. Larry Miller pastoral route into town, hoping it might erase the increasingly negative impression my students were receiving.

Then I saw it. Just when I had hoped that we had passed the worst of south Rochester, it appeared on the skyline to our right. No, it was not some flashy Mayo Clinic research building or some restored classic historic structure from the era of the Mayo brothers. I actually didn’t know exactly what it was except that it was tall, suspicious, and nobody had mentioned it during all our recruitment experiences in Rochester.

As we drove closer it became clear that my eyes were not playing tricks on me. One of the students groaned. There before us stood perhaps the largest “ear of corn effigy” in the continental United States (actually in the world). I was a factory water tower painted with some serious attention to detail.

Two thoughts hit me simultaneously. What had motivated some Rochester company to commit this corporate graffiti against an innocent water tower? More to the point, was this civic embarrassment the reason that Dr. Larry Miller had so carefully and consistently steered his nice car through the lovely Rochester countryside, conveniently dodging south Broadway and this monstrosity?

I wondered if anyone had actually ever been successfully recruited to Mayo Clinic after accidentally seeing this thing.

I imagined some Mayo Clinic recruitment policy manual instructing on processes for avoiding the “corn effect” until an unsuspecting recruit had agreed to terms.

Amazingly, most of my lab group members found enough at the world famous Mayo Clinic to overcome the “corn effect.” It was close though.

The other humorous and slightly uncomfortable moment came a month later after the move was complete. I met Dr. Larry Miller in the hall and small talk was exchanged. He asked the oft-repeated question:

“So, whose house did you buy?”

This query, innocent enough, implied that most thoughtful new Mayo Clinic recruits would purchase from among the lovely historic residences near the Mayo Clinic, the so-called “Pill Hill” district. Homes were practically handed down from physician to physician through the years. “Whose house?” was a simple way to phrase the question tactfully.

I mentioned to Dr. Larry Miller that, in fact, we had purchased a new home under construction, and made some modifications as it was being completed.

“Where?”

“Oh, down on the southwest side. Actually it’s not far from…"

It then came rushing to me all at once. Our new home in our nice new subdivision looked out on what remained of a cornfield and up toward a pleasant wooded hillside…

…where Dr. Larry Miller’s house looked down on us.

12.20.09

comments at a 30th high school reunion

I've been asked to offer a prayer of thanks for the food we will be enjoying at our class reunion meal this evening. I am touched by this honor.

Before we pray, I would like to make just a few personal comments.

I have had the chance to spend time with a number of you, my classmates, over the last two evenings, and I have been able to listen carefully to your stories. I have learned a lot, and what I've heard has really moved me. Sure, I heard some wonderful stories of business success and pride in family and career. But what touched me much more were the other stories. I looked into the eyes of classmates, some of whom I've known since Kindergarten. I saw your tears as I heard you quietly tell me about dreams that are never going to come true, about broken relationships, and about lost jobs and career failures. I heard the pain in your voices when you mentioned divorce, wayward kids, the struggles of helping ailing parents...and children. I felt your pain when you told me the stories of the deaths of siblings, and of moms and dads. There were tears as cancer survivors mentioned their battles and their fears. Even those few words showed me that glimmer of unspeakable pain and the anguish of those long sleepless nights and terror- the loss of innocence. I've been there too. Your stories revealed great humility. As I was driving home with Laura last night, your faces and your stories were running through my mind. Your words had been both painful and beautiful. I experienced a deep sense of love for you- the friends of my youth. I am thankful for you. I am proud of you. We little kids with our child-like dreams and joys are not playing a game. We are living real life.

I thought to myself, "the Class of 1979 has grown up."

So with that in mind, please join me in a prayer of thanksgiving on this happy occasion. I think maybe this is the first time the Class of '79 has ever prayed together. This prayer is not intended to make you feel uncomfortable or offended in any way. If you'd like to pray along with me, please do. If you'd prefer to simply listen, that's fine too. I will thank the Lord for this food, but if you don't mind, I'd also like to pray for our class.

Heavenly father I love you. We love you. We thank you for this happy occasion. We thank you so much for the lovely dinner we are about to enjoy. We thank you for the way that this meal symbolizes your gracious love for us and your many provisions for our lives. We thank you for the beauty of this world, and for the rich relationships you have given us to enjoy.

Lord, beyond thanking you for this meal, I pray for my classmates. You know every heart and you have seen every tear that has ever fallen from these eyes. Please bless and comfort these dear friends. Would you please meet their needs, whether emotional, mental or physical. Would you heal damaged relationships and provide tools and wisdom to deal with sorrow and personal struggles. Lord, for those who carry the burdens of injuries or illness, please bless and heal and bring peace.

Lord, I thank you for those who know you, and I ask that you would empower them to serve others in your name. For those who don't know you or who have journeyed far from you, please remind them that you have been pursuing a relationship with them since the day they were born. Bring them home to you.

Most of all father, I thank you that you offer us a way to be forgiven and a bridge to know you personally- because of what your son Jesus accomplished when he died on the cross for us.

So now I close this prayer with the Old Testament words that many of us first learned as a song more than 30 years ago,

May the Lord bless you.
May the Lord keep you.
May the Lord make his face to shine upon you,
and be gracious to you.
May the Lord lift up his countenance upon you,
and give you peace.

Amen

8/8/09

jim lipsky

I knew a man named Jim Lipsky. He had grayish hair and glasses. He was kind and quiet. He was a pharmacologist. He had a wife, Naomi, and his daughter was near the age of my daughters. I think Jim Lipsky was a little older than me, but not much. The family was Jewish. She was an artist whose quilling work featured gold leaf highlighting of beautiful Hebrew script. Plenty of Gentiles in our town owned and cherished her pieces. Their daughter was Hannah. Hannah and Naomi are beautiful names of beautiful characters from the Bible.

Jim Lipsky and I were faculty members together at the Mayo Clinic. I would see him from time to time at work—not often. A common occasion for seeing Jim Lipsky was at the spring graduation ceremony when we would don rented regalia (at least mine was rented), and enjoy the pomp and circumstance that went with giving diplomas to future doctors and scientists. I sat next to Jim Lipsky one year at graduation. I admired his robe and stole carrying the colors of Johns Hopkins University. We walked out of the hall together afterwards. We exchanged a few pleasantries. I never saw Jim Lipsky the same way again. Two days later a colleague told me that Jim Lipsky had suffered a seizure on his way home from graduation. Within a week it was learned that Jim Lipsky had malignant glioblastoma, the kind of brain tumor from which one does not recover. I was haunted by my recollection of Jim Lipsky walking out of the graduation ceremony with me. We had both been carefree, undoubtedly distracted by thoughts of work and late afternoon family responsibilities. The difference was that I went home to my late afternoon family responsibilities. Jim Lipsky had a seizure.

Jim Lipsky’s life fell apart. Jim Lipsky’s wife and daughter were dealt the hand that no bluff can overcome. Jim Lipsky and his doctors went through the prescribed motions. He had surgery and radiation. I saw him sometimes in the hall at work, his hair missing in telltale asymmetry. Jim Lipsky’s ability to speak was damaged. His ability to walk was damaged. It was just a few months before the news came that he would neither return to work nor recover. I didn’t see Jim Lipsky anymore. The Lipsky family was suffering. I was trying to imagine it and trying not to imagine it at the same time. My own cancer diagnosis had a different outcome. My cancer is slow. Jim Lipsky’s was fast. My wife and daughters imagined tragic scenarios that didn’t come true. Naomi and Hannah Lipsky were blind-sided and then fractured and then scattered. Their tragic scenario was both true and brutal. Laura and I had experienced a few sleepless and hopeless nights. Jim Lipsky and his family were stripped of all hope almost immediately. They never had a chance to catch their breath. Every night was sleepless and hopeless.

My last memory of Jim Lipsky is a difficult one. The unwanted memory lingers—perhaps because there is a quiet voice in my mind forever reminding me that my life could, at any moment, become Jim Lipsky’s life. I pulled up late one afternoon at the elementary school a block from my house. I was on my way home after work. I think it was Election Day. The school served as the polling place for our neighborhood. As I got out of my car and started toward the school I saw a parked van with its front doors open. A woman stood struggling helplessly at the curb, trying simultaneously to steady the slumping form of a man and a wheeled walker made of tubular metal. A young girl sat motionless in the back seat of the van, as if willing the scene out of her mind. It was Jim Lipsky and his wife and his daughter. This scene was the result of heroic effort by a family trying to prove that life could keep going on—even when life could not keep going on. Voting at the public school had become an epic errand, perhaps Jim Lipsky’s last epic errand. His condition had deteriorated. He could not climb back into his van. His daughter was too small or too numb to help. Naomi staggered between the van door and Jim Lipsky, her small frame unequal to the task. I admit it—there was a second when I found myself just wanting not to be there—not to be seeing this picture of the disintegration of a family in front of an elementary school in Minnesota. I wanted to hurry the other way. The quiet voice in my head wouldn’t let me turn. I walked to the van, stepped up to Jim Lipsky, and took his arm. I greeted him quietly and steadied his body. His face was full of pain. I don’t know if he recognized me. I was suddenly distraught to think that his path toward death was so physically harrowing. I had wanted to believe that he was fading from this life gently. He was not. I offered to help Naomi guide Jim Lipsky to his seat. She didn’t know me. It didn’t matter. As I looked into her eyes her tears began to flow uncontrollably. She couldn’t speak. Her face perfectly blended hopelessness, frustration, and despair. It took all my strength to lift Jim Lipsky into the passenger seat of his van. His daughter never looked up. His wife never found words as van doors closed and she started the engine. They pulled away and were gone. I was going to vote and then drive home to my girls. What was going to happen to Jim Lipsky when he got home?

I never saw Jim Lipsky again. I wish my last mental picture could be a soft shot of him sleeping peacefully in a hospice. It is not. The image will always be of a disabled man, not so much older than me, struggling by the side of a van, his wife and daughter helpless. Their vain attempt at a normal family errand had ended in pure bitterness. I still see the tears welling up from Naomi’s eyes. I hear the silence as her words failed her.

Bitterness.

Naomi means “pleasant” in Hebrew. The ancient Naomi was the mother-in-law of Ruth, the ancestor of King David, the ancestor of Jesus Christ. The Bible records Naomi’s words:

“Do not call me Naomi—call me ‘Mara’ (which means bitter) for the Almighty has dealt very bitterly with me.”

The biblical Naomi was eventually rescued from bitterness by grace. My prayer is that Naomi Lipsky might someday find the same.

I knew a man named Jim Lipsky. Now it’s hard for me to forget him. Maybe that is OK.

2.09