Remember, it’s not a dress rehearsal

I first met Dr. Mendelson in 1985. Curtis Mendelson flew to the Abaco’s in the early forties in a J-3 Piper Cub.  He circled Green Turtle Cay until finding a suitable landing site at low tide on the bar in Gilliam Bay.  Curt liked what he saw and moved permanently from New York to Green Turtle.  Curt was an accomplished Ob/Gyn physician and on the faculty at Cornell University but gave it all up in his early forties..

Dr. Mendelson had no children.  His wife was a professor of nutrition and published several text books.  Their only family was a collection of poodles and cats.  Curt married well and financial issues were never a distraction.  He convinced a local land owner that it would be in the communities best interest to sell him  property to enable him to live and practice medicine on the Cay.  He bought about 20 or 30 acres of the southern tip of Green Turtle for 50 British Pounds.  Kurt and Marie always did things in a New York fashion on what was at that time a very isolated cay.  He hired Frank Lloyd Wright’s firm to design and build a spectacular home overlooking Gilliam Bay.  A landing strip was incorporated into the property just east of the home. 

Curt delivered babies, managed minor  trauma,  practiced family medicine and spade dogs and cats.   He had an unusual sense of humor.  Spading cats and doing pelvic exams does of course create an incredible aray of one liners.  Curt would ride into town on his bicycle spot one of his patients and shout to her in his boisterous voice…(much to the horror of his patient) “Hey how is your P%&*y doing?”  He was of course refering to the poor ladies cat that he had spade the week prior..but she was also one of his Gyn patients.  Curt once told me the story of an encounter during his Ob/Gyn residency.  He had delivered the baby of an indigent woman 6 weeks prior.  As part of Cornell’s outreach program Dr. Mendelson made a house call on the mother.  A young boy about 6 answered the door.  Mendelson in his authorative manor informed the boy he was here to examine his mother in follow up.  Upon meeting the mother , I imagine in less than a professional manor, he  told her to prepare for the  pelvic exam.  After his assesment he remarked how well she had done in six weeks and asked where the baby was.  The mother pointed to the 6 year old….Curt had gone to the wrong house….didn’t seem to bother him at all.

Curt was also a golden gloves boxer.  He once thrashed a tourist for stealing the coconuts on his property then took him to the clinic to sew him up.   His wife Marie ended in the clinic a few times as well.  Curt had a nasty habit of crashing his plane on  final approach to the short runway behind his house.  Marie would take it in stride, collect most of the scattered groceries, gather her poodle from the wreck and make it back to the house.  I believe I heard Curt describe 3 seperate “hard landings”.  Marie finally took a firm stand and refused to fly to Florida for groceries any more.

Above all Curt was a sportsman…a bigger than life sportsman.  His house was lined with marlin bills over the fire place in his Frank Lloyd Wright home.  He once told me of catching a 400–500 lb marlin behind GTC while slow trolling in a 14 foot dingy with a single 2 stroke gas engine .  My friend Babs gave me a picture of that event the other day.  I never doubted Curt but looking at that moment captured in time really puts life into perspective.  This was a man who truely lived his life to the fullest in a way only he could.  Curt died several years ago in a nursing home in Florida…he is largely the reason I am here

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