Carl Youngstrom's Life Story
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Happy New Year Peter and Emily...................what a great surprise and delight to hear from you. I am certain all are very happy to hear of your marriage to Emily, quite a storybook event. I wish you both all the joy, peace and happiness the world can provide.
The only mention I have had of your activities in 43 years was from a now forgotten source who said you spent you enlistment playing piano in the officers club in Pensacola. I did not realize you had learned to repair delicate electronics with a hammer, a useful skill if there ever was one. I am frequently tempted to take a hammer to my computer. Very sorry to hear of your health problems however, I shall hope and pray they all can be successfully repaired.
As for the intervening 40 or so years, I know it sounds trite but life is certainly one hell of a ride. I fully sympathize with your depression, I too experienced a period of fairly deep clinical depression in the mid 90's leading to divorce (not a bad thing), kind of scrambling my professional (surgical) practice, and then remarriage (generally a good thing). I do not think we can fully blame Cranbrook but my shrink also said I had it most of my life. Called it a "dysthymic personality." I thought I was just pissed off at people I didn't like. Go figure.
At this point you have inspired me to relate the events of my past 40+ years. First off, I think Cranbrook was a great experience for me, a bit difficult to fully appreciate at the time, but really eye-opening compared to anything I had experienced before. After graduation I went to Yale and ended up majoring in Chemistry. There was a lot I did not and do not like about Yale and, frankly, the whole northeastern mindset. Nevertheless I did have some very good experiences and I could not really say I regret it. I really enjoyed organic chemistry and worked summers at the Parke-Davis research labs in Ann Arbor. They offered to send me through graduate school but I guess I was afraid of big corporate employment and wanted more independence. So I went to medical school at McGill University in Montreal, Canada. At the start of my surgical residency I married a lady from Texas that I had met at Wellesley College. We had two great children and, after finishing my residency, moved to Yakima, WA and went into private practice. Raising my children has been the greatest experience of my life but by the time they had graduated from college my depression spiraled downward and my marriage dissolved. I now have four grandchildren but I wonder at times why they live so far away. My daughter is in Tampa and my son is in Austin. They each have two children and they seem to enjoy my visits so I don't think they moved there to get away from me.
Anyway, two years after my separation I married Susan, a local lady who had managed my office for 14 years before leaving to manage a surgery center. A year after that I had a minor accident moving a hay elevator in the barn and avulsed my right biceps tendon. After surgical repair I ended up with a calcified radius that froze my elbow and left me with no rotation of the hand. End of surgical career. Not that that is necessarily a bad thing. I currently work part time running a vascular diagnostic ultrasound service, which I own, and raise horses on a small ranch (the Almosta Ranch I call it). I also like to do woodworking and have become reasonably accomplished at building furniture for our house and for my children. I also try not to return to my curmudgeonly ways. I still take the happy pills even though I think they are unnecessary, but why find out?
Lest this all sound too depressing, life is really quite enjoyable at this time. I would like to bring my wife to Cranbrook some time so she can see why I speak of it so highly.
To end with a few questions, does anyone know the whereabouts of John Shufelt? And finally, what is your secret Pete, how come you don't look a day older that at graduation?
Happy New Year and best wishes to all, I know I shall raise a glass to Peter and Emily.
- Carl Youngstrom
