Abstract

ONE AFTERNOON when I was a boy growing up in Walla Walla, Washington, I dropped into my father's office to borrow some money. I still remember vividly how surprised I was to see him come into the waiting room. The man I'd always known as my father suddenly appeared before me as Doctor Cowan, complete with white smock and stethescope, the very essence of doctorish crispness and competence. He seemed so much a doctor that I felt awkward calling him Dad. A couple of years later, we were getting a haircut together. Seeing him for the first time in a barber shop, I had a similar surprise. Here he was, perfectly at ease, swapping bawdy jokes and making obvious comments about crops and weather. Father, doctor, one of the boys. In hindsight, I realize that these childhood experiences constituted my earliest awareness of both the exclusiveness and