I was very moved by the piece in the last Cosmo Connections by Jack Haya, especially his comments on people in the pictures from 1948 when the house was at 605 East Daniel Street. I lived in the house for one year from 1949-1950. I had come down from Navy Pier, now UIC, to complete my degree and in the fall of 1950 returned to Chicago to start medical school at Illinois. As an American living at Cosmo, it was a transforming experience. I was Hjalti Einnarson’s roommate one semester and he was the incredible stoic that Jack Haya described in his piece. The description that LeVente DeWarga gave of sitting in a movie through several showings to teach himself English remains with me as a wonderfully inventive way to get over the language hurdle. Cirrillo McSween’s puzzlement about how blacks were treated in the U.S. in contrast with his experience in his native Panama reinforced my own beliefs that things could be different. The incredible style of the older Turkish Army officers studying engineering and driving their gorgeous convertibles impressed a poor kid from Chicago. Charley Fisher from New York, who was my roommate my first semester, introduced me to Orwell and Anti-fascist literature. Not all learning is in the classroom. Many others come to mind with great fondness: Sandhu, Khan, and Sassoon to name a few. My interest in other people continues in my work today, 55 years later. I teach psychiatric residents at the Maimonides Medical Center in Brooklyn where the welcome sign when you enter the hospital is in 14 languages. Ninety percent of our residents are foreign medical graduates. The teaching is a challenge and a joy as the experience echoes the excitement and pleasure of my time at the Cosmopolitan Club. Let me close with a memory of Sunday dinners. We were instructed each week that a coat and tie were mandatory. Herb Ciralsky showed up in just that attire, a coat and tie but no shirt or trousers, and as he quietly ate we all roared. Yes, he had shorts on. Rules were to be lampooned at times. Thanks for all the wonderful memories and life experiences. Cosmopolitan Club enriched the lives of Americans as it encourages us not just to know but to live with our fellow students from other countries and cultures. |