I was about 13 or so and found myself not in the smoky city in Pennsylvania where I grew up, but far far away. I had gone out west for the first time in my life.
I saw real cactus and an clear deep blue sky like I never knew existed! I was in Yuma Arizona, and I had come to get my tonsils out. Free. The Dr was my uncle, better known by the local townsfolk as "Wild Bill".
Wild Bill didn't really look much like a surgeon or a Doctor. He drove a dusty old Jeep, wore clothes covered with the same desert dust, even had built a log cabin way out in the desert near Ferguson lake. And yes, he did have a house in town.
Day before the surgery Uncle Bill took me to see an autopsy, saying it would toughen me up yes but it would also help teach me compassion and appreciation for the miracle of life. And at that time, I thought I too wanted to be a Doctor.
The autopsy was of a young black woman who had died needlessly Bill said. "Cause she didn't want to go to a Dr.", he paused. "Maybe she thought she couldn't afford a Dr". Then he gave me a long lecture about how many young MD's applying to work in his clinic sometimes cared more about money first and maybe helping folks second. It really bothered Bill that they had it the wrong way around cause in Bill's words "a doctor shouldn't worry about how much he'd make. He should worry about his patients and how best to help them".
And he said, "If they ask me about how much they will make before they ask about what medicine they will practice, I won't hire them".
Alas, tonsil day came.
I woke up laying on a bed in the back bedroom of wild Bill's house with a heck of a sore throat. When I tried to complain about the pain, Bill's comment always was "A little pain won't hurt you boy. Its time to be tough. Its time to be a man."
At dinner we'd have something he didn't buy in any grocery store. Words I would hear would be "Be sure to spit out the buckshot".
A few days after my tonsils came out I found myself hanging on to the jeep door for dear life, bouncing up and down like a tennis ball, On across the desert went Wild Bill clutching the shaking steering wheel with a white knuckled grip.
We were on our way to a cabin he had built "upriver". He said the 40 foot logs he built the cabin with had been shipped down from Oregon.
The air was clean, the stars were brilliant and I knew I was in God's country. A few years later I lived in Arizona and attended the University of Arizona in Tucson, where my Uncle John (another MD) lived.
Over the years I went back to see Wild Bill many times. But not enough times.
Sometimes we'd make a rough journey with Bill's friends down into Mexico to fish in the Gulf of California where seals and whales frolicked and wildlife in the water was like it was a thousand years before pollution. Sometimes to Bill's log cabin on the backwaters of the Colorado, but on every trip, my ears were graced with Wild Bill's tales of hunting and fishing trips and his scorn for some of the younger generation of MD's that cared far more about money than their practice of medicine and their patients.
Photo: Wild Bill (Wm A Phillips) Copyright Yuma Sun They don't make many men today like Wild Bill Phillips.
William A. Phillips, 96, a longtime physician in Yuma, died early Sunday morning at his Yuma home due to congestive heart failure.
Known as "Doc" or "Bill" to friends, Phillips retired nearly two decades ago after practicing medicine for 50 years. After retiring, he spent time traveling and pursuing his love of fishing and hunting.
He was recently presented the President's Distinguished Service Award by the Arizona Medical Association, of which he had been a member for 67 years.
Phillips came to Yuma in 1941, a week before the Pearl Harbor attack. He received a telegram to report to duty as a lieutenant one day, then another to disregard the first order.
His medical career started in his home state of Pennsylvania, where he attended high school, then graduated from the University of Rochester School of Dentistry and Medicine. In a past interview, he told a Yuma Sun reporter he wanted a drier climate so he completed his residency in surgery at St. Mary's Hospital in Tucson.
Phillips accepted the position as director of the Yuma County Health Department after Dr. Roy Knotts left. He opened Yuma Medical Center at 601 S. 5th Ave. in 1944, a building specifically designed for medical practice.
He practiced at the Yuma County Hospital on Avenue B and was the first chief of staff at Parkview Hospital (later Parkview Baptist) now Yuma Regional Medical Center.
When Gen. George Patton had troops training in the desert area north and east of Yuma, five of about 100 soldiers died of heatstroke. Phillips alerted the general, who "disregarded" the information then was informed by Congress to provide more water for the troops.
"About two years ago, I received a call from Bill saying something was wrong with his pacemaker," said Dale Webb, a semi-retired physician who once received diabetes treatment from Phillips. "Frank Martin was his doctor, and we got him into the hospital. Bill had his own ideas about the treatment and thought the new system was too complicated.
"He did a lot of procedures that probably wouldn't pass the muster today, but they worked. He was never sued for malpractice," Webb added. "We have been friends and hunters over the years."
Another "fan" of Phillips is Rose Vasquez Higuera.
"I'll never forget him. He treated me for asthma when I was in high school. It made it possible for me to participate in sports at Yuma High School and be in the Junior Athletic Association."
Now retired, surgeon Dirk Frauenfelder said he was given a physical by Phillips when a student at Yuma Union High School.
"I always revered him after going through college, medical school and internship in California. When I came back to Yuma in 1970 to practice at the hospital, he invited me to join him at his cabin up the river to hunt ducks and geese and to bass fish. He had a piano there to play. He made a practice of taking new doctors on these trips.
"He was an icon because he could do anything - be a surgeon, deliver babies, give shots for people to go to other countries. One of the best!"
Phillips loved the outdoors, said his wife, the former Marinita Brazeel. "He enjoyed fishing while staying at his cabin at Ferguson Lake and reeling in salmon from where our cabin is at Reedsport, Ore."
As to hunting, he always wanted to bag a bighorn sheep and accomplished that desire when he was 94.
"We were married in 1984 after his wife, Helen, had died," said his widow. "She was the first woman to be elected to the Yuma City Council. My husband, Gene, had died in 1982, and the four of us had been friends, camped and traveled together for years.
"Since our marriage, we have traveled a lot. Bill took up video filming and we have memories of travels and family get-togethers.
"Bill was the kind of a man who 'told it like it was' and even after his retirement, some of his patients would call him for a second opinion. He never disagreed with the person's physician but would give the caller a professional opinion. In his profession he delivered thousands of babies, set broken bones and performed a variety of surgeries."
Bill was preceded in death by his wife, Helen, and daughter, Sandra. He has two sons: Charles, with wife Ann, living in Los Angeles, and Ritchie, with wife Lucy, in Sitka, Alaska. There are three grandchildren and one great-grandchild.
The family is planning a memorial service after the first of the year. Johnson Mortuary is handling arrangements.
