Yale-New Haven Hospital, personally

In a sense, I feel I have always been from New Haven. Coming to Connecticut during the February '69 snowstorm, I was stranded overnight at New York's Port Authority bus station. I had to return and try again a week later. It was not uncommon in those days to be traveling, searching for something. Indeed there was something about New Haven that attracted me. I felt it then as I feel it now, ever so vaguely.

One of my first homes was on Ward Street, just up a little way from the hospital. In the late 60s, the Hill was a hip neighborhood, and I remember frequenting a local movie theater on Davenport that featured foreign films. It competed, at the time, with the Lincoln and the College Street theaters. I walked each day past the hospital on the way to my job at a popular little bookstore on Chapel Street. Everyone seemed to meet there, at one time of the day or another. The hospital rose tall above the local skyline with the Memorial Unit, new and imposing on one end, looking over the Route 34 extension - soon to be completed. May Day on the Green, the Panthers, Olivia's restaurant, and so went the 70s.

In 1980—July it was—I started working at Yale-New Haven after going back to school. The department I worked in was located in the basement of Boardman. The hallways were hot and humid. Around the corner from the office and up and down another corridor were locker rooms. It definitely had the feel of a different time, somewhere in the past. On the off-shifts it was always dark and a little foreboding in those areas—quiet and old. Like a cave. The tunnels...we frequented one to the MU—the long and windy one, often hot and bright, and all uphill in that direction. Many a fast run occurred there, transporting critical ER patients to 8WA and 8WB from the New Haven Unit. Other tunnels went elsewhere and were explored on slow nights but only with people who knew their way.

And then there were the patients. Who could ever forget that family? First, there was "the King." What a strange disease. And yet, he went on and on, treatments every hour for what seemed like forever. Even later at home we cared for him, watching his ventilator cycle in the dark, wee hours. Then, sure enough, and to much relief, he was suddenly gone. And then, his little sister, but she went quickly in the ICU one day. Mom was tough and cried in the next room. Then, again, a shock, another sister, almost the same name. Could it be, the same disease three times over? When would it all end? It did of course. We lived their frustrations, but what an ordeal.

Then things changed. All of a sudden it seemed conditions modernized, and the department was relocated to the New Facility. Staffing improved, equipment became more complicated, and the quality of professional workmanship rose to the high skill level of today. Old timers left, younger ones took over, the Children's Hospital opened, and two years ago I turned 50, quietly. Now I have become a senior member, assisting primarily in the education and orientation of new employees.

I feel good about my career at YNHH. I have benefited, made some friends over the years, and cherish many memories. Aspects of the Hospital have opened up, and it has grown. Many, many patients have gone home. Now that my 50 is but a share of YNHH's 175, I feel, like others perhaps before me, we have experienced something worthwhile. In the meantime, I also met my wife for 26 years—an area native, born at YNHH—and I feel I have finally emerged, localized.

John Evenwel
Branford, Conn.