W. Rogers Beasley, M.D.

Henry  --  Yes, I did get the picture of your Dad and Bill Gardner.  Brings back memories.   Of the starting class of 40 there were 30 graduating. Now there are only six left, all around the age of 90, give or take a year.   That’s 24 with no staying power.

                            Now for a story  --  During our first year of medical school the main subject was Anatomy with cadaver dissection in the lab.  One fine spring day the irrascible Anatomy professor noted that one of our classmates, Rogers Beasley, had his elbow on the cadaver and was gazing out the window.  The professor said, “Beasley, why aren’t you carrying on with your dissection?”  Beasley,  instead of saying, “Yes sir, sorry sir, I’ll get right on it, sir”, made the mistake of being philosophical and said, “Dr. Miller, sir, there are other things in life to be observed.”  Whereupon Dr. Miller said, “ Beasley, come to my office.”  Beasley went to his office and what transpired will never be known, but we never saw Beasley again.    I suppose there is a moral to this story, a lesson to be learned.  Perhaps it is this -  choose the right moment to wax philosophical.           

                            Which brings up another story about philosophy.   When I was in Korea, standing in the mess line waiting to be served, I struck up a conversation with one of the cooks.  I asked him how he came to be a cook in the army.  He said, “Sir, I was a philosophy major at Princeton, and when the draft brought me into the army they must have had enough philosophers,  so they made me me a cook.    I suppose there is a lesson to be learned here too  - choose the right time to become a philosopher, and that is not when there is a war going on.        Will Meriwether

Henry Selby	6:52 PM (20 hours ago)
to William

Great stories!  But don't I vaguely remember a W. Rogers Beasley who was very instrumental in building up the Frontier Nursing Service?  It seems to me that I even wrote to him once while I was an undergrad at Sewanee .  .  .
I did a quick web search on the FNS but couldn't find any reference to him.  I did discover that they now are a full fledged University!
yours,
Henry