Donald Russell has been there and back again, on a route that took him to South Korea and New England in the 40 years before he returned home in July.
Along the way he learned the Korean language, got a thorough medical education in everything urological and taught himself to play the piano.
The son of Fern and Warren Russell, he attended Eugene Field and Lincoln Elementary Schools, Roosevelt Junior High School and Pittsburg High School. “I spent three hours a day in vocational printing with John White, and loved it,” Russell said. “I also took a typing class, which was the best thing I ever did.”
During junior high, he also worked part-time at a nursing home, helping with the personal care of male patients. “When I was in the eighth grade, my aptitude tests showed I should be in nursing, and the teacher told my mother to be sure I became a nurse,” Russell said.
Instead, after graduating from PHS, he got a job at Vac-O-Hy Printing in Girard as a press helper. He loved working with the modern equipment at the company. “The equipment I used in printing the PHS Booster was older than I was,” Russell said.
He later became a job runner there, checking the progress of work in the various company departments. “I was there until May 1966 when I got a letter from Uncle Sam — I was drafted,” Russell said. “I had to report to the induction center, which was in downtown Pittsburg. We still had an active railroad depot here, and I got on the train and went to Kansas City. From there I went to Fort Leonard Wood for basic training.”
It was a learning experience for Russell. “There I was, basically a country hick, meeting people from Chicago, New York, everywhere,” he said.
He also heard words from the drill instructor that he’d never heard before. The men were housed in re-converted World War II barracks. “At 7 p.m. that night we had to empty out the barracks and strip the old wax off the floors by hand,” Russell said. “At midnight we finally got to sleep, but the drill instructor woke us up with a shrill whistle at 5 a.m.”
After eight weeks of basic came advanced training at Fort Gordon, Ga. “They were building new buildings there, but our barracks wasn’t completed, so we had to sleep in World War II tents,” Russell said. “We had to pat down our bunks every night for snakes. They had lists of snakes posted, with pictures of which ones were poisonous.”
He was trained to be a radio repairman and was then shipped off to South Korea, and was grateful for it.
“This was during the Vietnam War era,” Russell said. “I feel that if I’d gone there, I wouldn’t be here now.”
After a month’s indoctrination, he was sent to a post just 10 miles from the border with North Korea and served at the maintenance repair shop there. Russell became fond of the country and its people. “Korean women are very pretty,” he said. “One of them asked me to visit an orphanage, so I’d play with the children on Sundays, worked in the library, and then it was time to leave. I really wanted to stay in Korea, but they said no, and I was sent back to the United States, to Fort Riley.”
He was discharged from the army on April 25, 1969. Russell first got a job at an exclusive mansion bed and breakfast. “I first worked there as a car parker,” Russell said. “On some of those imported cars I couldn’t even find where to put the key in. Then I became a waiter and wore a red jacket with gold buttons.”
He was there a couple of months, but left because he became sick of the rich French foods. “A buddy, who worked as an orderly at a hospital, heard of a doctor who needed somebody,” Russell said.
He met Dr. Arnold Baskin in fall 1970, and that started a career which lasted until his retirement. “Dr. Baskin taught me the ins and outs of urology,” Russell said.
Baskin later had him enroll in an 18-month training course that would include serving an internship in a doctor’s office. “This was a forerunner of the physician’s assistant programs,” Russell said. “I got involved in all aspects of what a physician’s assistant does, including internal medicine, cardiology, etc. They sent me in to do a breast examination on a woman — I was so embarrassed, but she didn’t think anything of it. Then came the pelvic exam, and that was another scary idea.”
But Russell learned a great deal. “I even knew how to deliver a baby,” he said. “I still could, if I had to.”
Then he got a call from Dr. Baskin, who told him that he hadn’t been able to find a host doctor for the internship portion of his training, so Russell returned to the clinic. “I had this vast knowledge, and Dr. Baskin made sure I used it,” he said.
Baskin’s practice continue to expand, and more doctors were added to the group, which became the Urology Center of New Haven, Conn. Russell was kept busy there, including working with a specialist in the field of male infertility and lecturing to medical and nursing students at Yale. “I gave up the lecturing in 1992 because I was so busy at the office,” he said.
Finally he decided to retire. “My last day at the center was June 2,” he said.
The nurses treated him to a party, complete with decorations related to male urology. “The girls handed me a big, heavy sack, and inside was a laptop computer,” Russell said. “I was stunned — I cried like a baby.”
The center doctors invited him out to dinner, then gave him a card. “A picture of a piano fell out of the card,” he said. “They had written on it, ‘This is your new toy. Have fun.’”
Russell and his new piano are now in Frontenac. He still has relatives in the area, and keeps busy with projects such as recovering his dining room chairs.
FRONTENAC —
