Fall 2007 Vol. VI, No. 1

Medicine Class of 1982 Reunion

Plan it and they will come!!!

We have talked about this for a number of years but never acted on it. Mini-reunions happened here and there. Summer in Beirut was always a good time to see some of the boys and girls. But never did we have an official reunion. And time flies, it is like mercury in your hand, it slips, and the more you want to hold on to it the more slippery it is.

Five years after graduation was "no time at all". Sucked into the tunnel of residency, five years are just about the time you start seeing the light at its end.

Ten years after graduation you are trying to establish a practice, organize a life, adjust to a new country, or to an old one with a new scarred face.

Fifteen years, it is either diapers that you are struggling with, or it is those that came out of diapers and plunged you with them into the dungeons of teenage-hood.

Twenty years after graduation you suppress the memory of that fact because...it just cannot be. No way, do you really mean we are at about the age our parents were when we went to Medical School !!?? Instead of a reunion you join a gym or start yoga.

Twenty five years...TWENTY FIVE YEARS...that is a landmark that you cannot dismiss, suppress, ignore or neglect. It hits you in the face like a pie flung at you from the sinkhole of time. You are circling the drain towards the worm-hole that will catapult to your next state of existence and the 25 year pie is circling up towards you. You just cannot avoid it...it slams you right in the face. Its cream covers your moustache and sideburns streaking them with silver white. The impact of the slam loosens the skin on your face and starts building that famous double chin that your father had. Yes, that same one you blamed your father for developing because he had an extra serving from "Iskandarani's Ice Cream Parlor" or that manqooshee he ate from "FOORNIL JAMA'A". That double chin is now yours to negotiate your razor blade around every morning as you contemplate the hair that grows on your ear lobes...another autosomal dominant trait you got from your ancestors.

So...when the 25th year comes, you are ready for a reunion. Plan it and they will come...

HATHA KANA LISANOO HALINA. SA-W-FA YA'ATOONA MINN KOOLLEE HADBEN WA SAUB. BIL SAYYARATEE SA YA'ATOON, BIL TA'EERATEE SA YA'TOON. AL AMALOO KANA AN NALTAQEE FEE BAYROOT. FEEL JAMIA'A. FEE BA'ABDA I'INDA BAYTIL SHABB. FEE AITAT I'INDA BAYTEE TALHOUK. FIL KOURA I'INDA BAYTEEIL DEEB WA BAYTEEL MILKI. FEE AIN ZHALTA BEE DAREE TAWFIQEEHA. KANAL AMALOO ANN NADA'AMA TAWASOOA'AL KHASEERATEE BEE MANQOOSHEE COCKTAIL MIN I'IND FURN ABUGHASSAN WA BEE A'ASEER COCKTAIL MIN MALLIKIL VITAMEEN, WA BEE SANDWEESHET BASTURMA MIN AL BARON MASSIS. WA LAKKIN "HABEEBEE BABBOUR BEE ROOH HEYK HEYK...HAWA BEE YIJEE HEYK".

It was difficult for our classmates in Beirut to understand our "chickening out". After all we answered the ECFMG questions to the tunes of mortars, howitzers, and 50 caliber AA guns. We graduated in June of '82. Our "daily bread" was Israeli air raids and shelling.

Miguel protested that foreign professors are coming to the MEMA, while we, WLADIL BALAD, are tucking our tail between our legs and retreating. True...true...but the experience few of us had last summer was a matter not to be repeated. Dragging families on a trek to Damascus, Amman, or Cyprus is not a memory that we want our children to have of their home country. And frankly, seeing our country commit suicide from a distance is slightly less painful than being there.

So "Aboul Meeg" we chickened out...Kindly, have the last rational, decent and honest group of people leaving the country bring the flag with them.. We are sorry "Aboul

Meeg", yes we are bitter, we are disappointed, we are sad. We watch with bewilderment, with pain, with disgust, but mostly with fear for you, for our friends, and for our families. But let's not go there now...sort of flight of ideas that Fouad Antoun will give me Halodol for.

Let's go back to the class of '82. We planned it and we came. We came from Beit Miri, we came from Beirut, we came from Tripoli, Koura, Zgharta. We camr from Marji'yoon, from Aitat, from Ba'aqleen. We all met one early morning in early October 1977 in front of the Basic Science Building. To be among the chosen few, proud we were, happy we were, excited we were and definitely anxious were we. Who of us does not remember that morning. A new world we were to enter. Names like Raif Nassif, Sima'am, Fawwaz, Dagher with the bushy eyebrows, Shweiry the Oracle of oracles, Jabbour the cat herder...These were not demigods, these were the gods themselves.

MINN KUL WADEE A'ASA KUNNA. JAMA'ATNA KULIYATTOL TUBBE WA MA'AL WAQTEE O'OJINNA WA KHUBIZNA. KHAMEERATU MA'LOOMATEE ALIHATIL TUBBEE WUDIA'AT FIL A'AJNA WAL NATEEJA KANAT JAYYIDA...BAL JAYYIDA JIDDAN.

We planned it and we came. This time in Cambridge on Chesapeake Bay. Sonia, Paul and Walid from California. Costy, Issam and Lina from Texas. Capitaine from Baltimore. Raja and Fadi from NY. Azizy Aziz and Shaheen Al Armani from Boston. Three "M", Randa, and Hassan from NJ...so on so forth. From "each valley a twig"...Different country however. Different language...but amazingly the same people. Wider at the waste...white hairs here and there, floppy triceps skin folds...yet the same boys and girls coming together with their own boys and girls.

It starts with a glimpse of a familiar face, followed by a moment of silence, then the eyes brighten with a twinkle of lacrimal duct secretions, a smile across the face, "MISH Marwan?"..."Wlak Hasan?"...then a hug from the heart and the three kisses on the cheeks. In Cambridge they thought this was a reunion of middle aged gay men, but when the girls were kissing and hugging the boys and when the children were all around us, "the foreigners" were pleasantly confused. They were more confused when they saw parts of our last year's show that Paul had burned onto a DVD years after it was burned into our cortex.

We now were in a land of MAGIC. And I thought that magic only existed in Harry Potter's world, how gullible I am. In Cambridge on August 2nd, August 3rd, August 4th and August 5th we touched a "Port Key" and we were whisked back to a different world, a different time, a different place...but the same people. We touched our forehead with a magic wand, pulled few threads of memory and put them in the "Pensive" and the images came to life. We did not just see them, we lived them. Our spouses saw them in our joy, in some photo albums and in the show on the DVD.

Issam, Maral and Costy gave lectures one morning on their research. Guess what, we all sat in a classroom again. Guess what, the same groups sat with each other the way they did 25 years ago. Guess what those that were talkative 25 years ago are still talkative now. Guess what, they can still gossip, make jokes and be silly and in the end can ask relevant and intelligent questions about the presentations, just like they did 25 years ago.

The children...the children of the boys and girls of the class of' '82 met, became friends and were hugging each other on the day of departure. I guess the love and friendship that their parents have to their classmates spilled over big time. MIGUEL, this is the way it should have been on regular basis...had we lived in our home country. Now you see why we are bitter ! This should not have been a once in a quarter century occurrence. It should have been routine...and in Lebanon not on the Chesapeake Bay, but on Joon Jounieh. But let's not digress into my anger...Haldol...Haldol !!!

All children, whether from two Lebanese parents, or one Lebanese and one "foreigner", called themselves Lebanese. Blonde haired, blue eyed, black haired, dark eyed, few or no Arabic words...yet Lebanese. Maen's son as western as any westerner, says he's Lebanese... !!! They have a sense of belonging...in spite of it all.

Our professors in AUB used to tell us that since 1956 they did not see a class like ours. That was the class of Farid Fuleihan, Khalil AbuFaysal, Adel Yunis, Michael Slim, etc... We remember that with pride. We like to think that we were and are special. We remember that with pride, we like to think that we strived for excellence. We remember that with pride, we like to think that we left a mark. We remember that with love to our Alma Matar, to our teachers and to our classmates.

HAL TUBBIYEE MISH A'AM TIMSHEE...SHUWEIRY MA BIYA'TEEHA DAFSHEE...AL WAQI' ANNA HATHEEHIL TUBBIYEE MASHIYA WA RAH TIBQA TIMSHEE LA'ANNA SHUWEIRY WAL FULEIHAN WAL FAWWAZ WAL KURBAN WAL RUBEIZ WAL SALTI WA AMTHALAHUM QADD SAKABOO QALBAHUM WA A'AQLAHUM WA WAQTAHUM...BAL HAYATAHUM FEE WIA'AEEHA. HAL TUBIYEE RAH TIMSHEE LEE ANNAHA ISTAMRARRIYATOO ALQIYYAMMIL INSANIYATIL TUBBIYYA AL LATEE HAMALAHA MEEA'ATOOL KHIRIJEEN AL LATHEENA HUM FEE LUBNAN WA FEE ANHA'IL ALAM.

Before the class of '82 dispersed they created a new bond that will keep them together yet again. They committed to establishing an endowment fund for the purpose of scholarships for needy medical students. That will keep us busy, that will keep us together, that will keep us in touch and that will help us pay back some of what we owe the Alma Matar and the country. It is "The Medicine Class of 1982 Endowed Scholarship Fund - In Memory of Zalfa Ali-Hamad, Adnan Badro, Hani Hout, and Antoine Zubuni".

We will continue to contribute until we retire or die. When we die we add our name to the list. The one who lives longest will pay most...we figure that it will only be fair !!
We will have another reunion soon. This time we will not wait 25 years. We hope it will be in Lebanon. Maral spoke about Parkinson's Disease in her presentation, the second most common neurodegenerative disorder. We made her promise to talk about the most common one next time we meet...Alzheimer's. I wonder if we will remember this promise.

We put forth a challenge to other classes, medical school or otherwise. We learned that AUB has only about 140 endowments. Hundreds of classes have graduated over the years. Join us and create your own class endowment.

We were all lucky to be in this class. We all are proud to be in this class. We have a bond that few other groups share. I take great pride to have been their last class representative. That was an honor bestowed on me and Ghada in our last year.

In closing I want acknowledge those who made this reunion the memorable event it was. Maen the CAPITAINE; Hasan whose "finger he had injured"; Rula "MRAT Hasan"; Lina BINTIL Marouf; Maral our quite genius; Costy the most generous; Issam a brother "MA WALDAT-HOO UMMEE"; Paul the ultimte entertainer; and though he was not with us, Nabil IBNIL Kenaan whose songs, poetry and zajal are the vase that holds our memories.

YADEE ILA QALBEE

Akram Bin Shakib - Min Aitat
Dr. Akram Talhouk, '82