Michael first fell in with the late lamented and slightly disrespectable Fessenden Review. This was eighteen years ago.
We had attended "The Evolution of Psychology" Conference held in Phoenix, Arizona in 1987 and published a three-part article on it in the magazine. We saw to it that all conference-goers got a free copy of the magazine.
Michael, one of our first correspondents, sent along a manuscript, and went to the trouble of having one of his artist friends draw up a picture of a "undressed stampeding elephant" because we had cited that as required along with any submissions to the magazine.
He sent it along with the following letter:
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Dear Editor,
An "unsolicited manuscript" sounds as appetizing as an "unwashed leper," or an "uncircumcised heathen." Still, I enclose one copy of same (the manuscript, not the leper), in the hope that you will find it of enough interest to publish in TFR. I'm not sure if it's up your alley, but then, having been a subscriber for the past year, I'm not certain of anything that is up your alley.
The main reasons I'm sending it along are to tell you that I love your publication, and as an excuse to enclose a stamped, peeing, undressed elephant. I could not find an undressed stampeding elephant as requested in your instructions to contributors, but I hope that the enclosed elephant will do.
He wrote equally compellingly of his family, his early days in practice, his travels, and --- most sensitively --- his patients. The writing was graceful, so much so that sometimes, when our day-to-day went topsy-turvy, we wanted to adjourn to Providence and spend a couple of weeks having him untangle our sanity and our souls.
We have included in this issue a story we published several years ago telling of his father (like him, a medical doctor) and his early years in medical school. It appears as Medical Paraphernalia.