I remember when I was in school, many of the girls used to wear pigtails. I’ll never forget a little Bergeron girl from Glenwild Plantation who sat in front of me. One day, one of her pigtails went right into my black ink bottle which was open. Her hair was caught in the bottle, so she swung her head to the side and the ink bottle flew and hit Omer Gouner and the ink splattered all over his face. He turned around, looked at me, and said, “Mammy!”
Remember in the early ’20s when all the girls wore black bloomers which was the style then? When one of those girls would pass by me, I would always look the other way because sometimes the bloomers would slip down below their knees and show a sight that wasn’t exactly beautiful.
Someone asked me the other day who I thought was the best doctor in the Morgan City area. Well, I didn’t want to voice my opinion on that. I know that all doctors here are very busy. I know because my son is a doctor and he is always busy and always on call. He leaves the dinner table many times to rush to the hospital when he is called – all times of the night for emergency surgery.
However, I was close to Russell Brownell. I went to school with him. You will notice that I say “Russell” not “Doc” as most people do. I would also say “Warren” to Bishop Boudreaux, because we were raised together. In class, Russell sat across from me and Dave Kahn sat on the opposite side. Russell was very shy in school. If the teacher would ask a question, Russell never raised his hand; however, he always knew the answer. When the teacher would ask Dave a question and Dave didn’t know the answer, he would tell the teacher to ask Russell, who always knew the answers. Dave was a character who made Russell blush all the time.
Well, to me Russell was a dedicated doctor who loved his profession as well as all his patients. He never did worry about whether you could pay your bill or not. He didn’t send bills to people who he thought couldn’t afford to pay him. He was a most charitable doctor and I thought the world of him; he was always my very good friend.
Today, my two favorite doctors are my son, Dr. Don “Bobby” Guzzetta of New Orleans and Dr. Chip Metz of Morgan City. They went to school together; they attended college together; they were roommates together; and both became doctors together. Chip’s father was such a good doctor with the most wonderful bedside manners of any doctor I have ever known. Chip, to me, is like family – someone that we have known forever.
My son told me that while they were at LSU, some of the workers and janitors would take things out of their room. They always had something missing. So Chip finally got tired of this situation with always something missing. So, he said: “I’ll fix ’em!” So, the next day, he came to school with a huge boa constrictor which he left in his room and kept him laying on the railing. One of the janitors came into the room unexpectedly and saw the huge snake and ran out screaming. Nothing ever showed up missing again.
Remember when Dr. Berwick used to go to “Tony, the Butcher” for scraps for his dog? Did you know Dr. Berwick never owned a dog?
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