Yesterday I attended the memorial service of Floyd Fried, father of my friend Dan. As has been the case with many other memorials, I was struck not just by how cool other people's parents were -- compared with my dad, whom everyone had been convinced was the greatest guy back in the day but had a lot of hair on him -- but how awesome a cohort of people the doctors of UNC's Memorial Hospital were back in the 70s. I've heard so many foundational stories of people coming to UNC and staying and having great careers and rich lives together. It makes me think about our generation's tendency to switch jobs all the time and what it has cost us in terms of long-lasting relationships with colleagues.
This was also a generation of physician-scholar-teachers who matured into their professions alongside Dean Smith, which must have been a marvelous thing to do. I am fully aware that my perception is greatly colored by the rose-tinting tendency of the memorial service when, for the most part, people are inclined to tell predominantly the best stories and maybe throw in an anecdote or two about the decedent's temper. But still.
Also, hearing about other people's parents fills me with a little sadness that our social milieu was so much more Durham lawyers and small businesspeople than Chapel Hill professors. Such is life.
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