Dr George Hershey

I have written numerous stories and have drawn many cartoons about some of my Bisbee, Arizona High School buddies but never have I stretched the truth about any of the events I witnessed in their life. My friend George Hershey was known as the “hunk” during his high school years of 1952 to 1956. All of the other boys in the school were envious of George’s dashing good looks and of his ability to date any girl of his choice. One of our mutual friends, Ted Sorich, thought that the “hunk” title should have been his since he was the Big Man on Campus because of his athletic skills. Ted might have been able to claim that title if he hadn’t been as ugly as a mud fence.
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After high school I lost track of George for many years but our paths crossed about 5 or 6 years ago in a very unusual way. I work one day a month as an unpaid volunteer at the River Art Gallery in downtown San Antonio, Texas. This gallery is a Co-op gallery of local artists and I am a member. Over 90 per cent of the visitors to the gallery are from out of town so I usually strike up a conversation with them and ask them where they are from. I asked this question to a nice-looking young lady and she replied she was from Flagstaff, Arizona. I knew that another high school friend of mine, Bill Williams, lived in Flagstaff and I asked her if she knew him. She was amazed that I knew Bill and asked how I knew him. I told her that Bill and I went to school together in Bisbee. She exclaimed that she married a boy from Bisbee named George Hershey and that they were in San Antonio for a medical convention. It’s a small world.
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She brought George back to the gallery during lunch time and asked him if he knew who I was. He said that he had no idea. His failure to recognize me really did bother me for several years because my physical appearance had barely changed from my high school years. I looked almost exactly like I did for my senior high school picture. On the other hand … when she brought George in to meet me, I thought she had picked up a panhandler off of the San Antonio streets. He had a scraggly looking beard and there wasn’t quite as much hair on the top of his head as there had been when I had last seen him. We did however have a nice lunch together and talked about the “good old days”.
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I learned that George was a “Doc” just like his dad had been in Bisbee. He set up a practice in Flagstaff and has been the team Doctor for Northern Arizona State University for many years. We are all proud of George for his accomplishments but one of his former patients told me that George was notorious for not being punctual in seeing his patients. I don’t know if this true or not but the cartoon below depicts another patient of his who had “quite a wait” until he finally got to see George.
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George Hershey in Action

Filed under: Business Cartoons

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