Poor No More: An American Dream

By MD Steven Bentley

Now retired, author Dr. Steven Bentley was a successful emergency physician. But his path in life wasn't always an easy one. In Poor No More-An American Dream, he shares his story of how he survived a rare birth defect, abject poverty, an alcoholic mother, a KKK father, an abusive children's home, and a cruel step-mother.

This

• Language: English
• Publisher: Brilliant Books Literary
• Release date: Jul 29, 2023
• ISBN: 9798889453048

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Copyright © 2023 by Steven Bentley, MD. All rights reserved.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without express written permission from the author, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

Published in the United States of America

Brilliant Books Literary

137 Forest Park Lane Thomasville

North Carolina 27360 USA

ISBN:

Paperback: 979-8-88945-303-1

Ebook: 979-8-88945-304-8

Contents

Introduction 

The Early Years 

The Home 

1965 

Myrtle 

High School: 

College: 

The Training Years 

The Adult Years 

The Final Years 

INTRODUCTION

My name is Steven Bentley, M.D. I am a successful, retired ED physician. This is my story of how I became a physician and fell in love with Emergency Medicine! Join me as I deal with a difficult childhood. There was severe poverty. I had an alcoholic mother, a KKK father, and an evil stepmother! I had to live in a children’s home for some time. Eventually, I grew into a young man and attended Medical School. I practiced ER during a time of enormous change in the field of Emergency Medicine. The Chinese have a saying – may you live in interesting times. I did.

Emergency Medicine had been the red-headed step-child of Medicine. Many physician’s practiced ER at some point in their careers. Only a few realized the broad base of knowledge and special skills that were required in order to provide the public with appropriate, excellent medical care during a time of great crisis in their lives. It was through their efforts that Emergency Medicine became a respected, recognized specialty in the family of Medicine.

I began my journey simply trying to escape from the severe poverty that I had experienced as a child. Somewhere, during my career, I fell in love with Emergency Medicine. I found It immensely gratifying to apply all of that medical knowledge and have it make an immediate change in someone’s life for the better. Quite often the cases did not turn out well, but when they did it was extremely satisfying.

There is a classic old song by Paul Simon. It is called – I am a Rock. Some of the lyrics say – I won’t disturb the slumber of feelings that have died. Well - I disturbed the slumber of some of those feelings! I genuinely hope that some of my stories can help someone else on their journey through life. That would make it all worthwhile.

I had a younger brother and three older sisters. We were very close. Some of them made the journey, and some did not! I wish a few things had been different, but they were not. Some people may be shocked by some of these stories. I certainly was. Here is my story.

The Early Years

Here I sit, enjoying another sunrise over the Appalachian Mountains. I spend the winters in warm, tropical Costa Rica, with Toucans, parrots, hummingbirds and glorious flowers. I am a successful, retired M.D., with a loving wife (really my best friend), a comfortable home in the Southern Appalachians, beautiful flowers, a wonderful vegetable garden, thriving bees in my hives, and 17 acres of mountain land to maintain with my tractor (really just to play with-I love learning about tractors- it must be a guy thing). It is simply spectacular! How in the world did this ever happen? Why was I so fortunate? Why ask why? To borrow a phrase from psychiatry, I suspect that I have a bit of - survivor’s guilt. Everyone has a story. Here is mine.

My parents were Jeanette and Harvey Bentley. Jeanette was a beautiful, full figured young woman, as I can see in her old photographs. She was the youngest of eight children. Large families were the norm in those days for several reasons. Farming was still common and a lot of hands were needed to bring in the crops. In addition, infant mortality was still high. It was still common for many of the children to die before reaching their teenage years.

She went to college at the University of Georgia, in Athens, her hometown. Here she majored in English. My father was Harvey Bentley. He was clean-shaven, tall and lean. He, like so many others, had led a hard life. They lived in a small-town in Georgia called Lincolnton. A tornado had swept through his home when he was a young teenager. It killed his younger sister and he carried her, in his arms, to the only hospital, a few miles away. His father lost everything in the Depression. He then left Lincolnton, and went to Augusta, Georgia. He went to work in a drug store there, for a spiteful, mean-spirited Uncle. He apparently worked long, hard hours there, then left to attend college.

He went to college at the University of Georgia, in Pharmacy school. There he met my mother. She got pregnant. It was now in the late l940’s. They got married and had 4 more children. Cheryl was the oldest, then Patricia, Terry, myself and finally (five years later) my little brother Michael. We came to be known as - Jeanette’s kids. When there was family trouble, and that was often, nobody wanted us. I can’t really blame them.

I have often wondered what happened to my mother. She became an alcoholic, whore in Atlanta. We wished she were a prostitute, because we really needed the money. My father paid his required alimony and child support, but mom just drank it all away. Harvey was an extreme racist! He was a KKK sympathizer, if not an outright member. Many of his friends belonged to the KKK.

Later, he developed a real problem with the women in his life. He let them dominate him completely, much to his and his children’s detriment. He never supported his children in any dispute that he had with his wives (he had three). It is a fact of life, but in an adult world, children are unable to fight for themselves. They require support, guidance and love and supervision. We received none of that. I suspect that, in their own way, they were both good people. They just should never have become parents.

Just like many other adults, they had their problems. I have come to believe that although adults, quite often, have problems, they owe it to their children to keep the problems to themselves. They owe it to the children not to spread their pathology onto the next generation. I had four siblings. Two of them did well. The other two did not! I have often heard, as I am sure many of you have, the expression – If you want something in life, you have to work for it. I did. Life is hard! That is just the way it is.

On the first day of September, 1953, I was born in a small town in northwest Georgia. I suspect that there was a great deal of chaos then, because I have a congenital syndrome known as – Kartagener Syndrome. This syndrome consists of - chronic sinusitis, chronic bronchitis, and a complete reversal of all the internal organs – a condition that is known as situs inversus totalis. Just after birth, I apparently suffered cardio-pulmonary arrest. In this condition, the heart and lungs stop working.

Knowing what I know now, all pediatric codes are chaotic and full of confusion. I suspect that this was especially true in 1953. They were in such a hurry that no birth certificate was ever generated for me. Years later, when the doctor found out that I had survived, and had even gone to Med School, he was thrilled and created my birth certificate.

The good news is that I was successfully resuscitated and immediately sent to Egelston Hospital in Atlanta. This is a wonderful Pediatric Hospital. There, I was placed on a ventilator and treated. I remained on the ventilator for several days, then weaned off, and I was finally discharged home on antibiotics. These were a relatively new addition to the world of medicine, at that time.

At this time in the wider world, Sir Edmund Hillary had climbed Mt. Everest. It is the tallest mountain in the world and this was the first time it had been summitted. The Korean Conflict was all but over and television was a new invention that was being explored. Mr. Eisenhower was president and Vietnam was a struggling nation that American’s had never heard of. It was only a problem for the nation of France. I was a baby-boomer. My generation would exert enormous social and political pressures during the coming years.

Like most people, my memories of early childhood are fragmented and dim. Most of these events are from memory. Some are augmented by stories from my oldest sister, Cheryl. First we lived in Augusta, Georgia with my parents. I started school and did really well. I enjoyed learning even then.

My mother was having emotional issues and abused alcohol a lot. She was committed to Talmadge Hospital, in Augusta, for treatment. Interestingly, this is where, many years later, I worked as a Medical Resident. I had access to her old medical records and apparently she was one of the first patients to receive Electro-Shock therapy. This was a new therapy that was being tried in severe depression cases. It had gained notoriety in Jack Nicholson’s movie -

One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. It did not appear to help her either.

We used to go by and take her out for lunch while she was in the hospital. These are some of my earliest memories of my mother. She got drunk one day, fell asleep in the car with a cigarette in her mouth and burned up our car! Obviously, they had many other problems as well! My parents got a divorce, when I was about 7 years old. Michael was a 2-year-old infant.

My mother brought us all together for a family meeting and asked us who we wanted to live with-her or my father. We were just small children and began to cry. Of course, we told her that we wanted to stay with her. My mother gained custody of all the children, and then we rarely saw my father. He visited us a few times through the years, but I was afraid of him and refused to meet with him.

I remember living with my grandmother, whom we called Mama Ginn. She lived in Athens, Georgia. The house was a standard 3-bedroom family home, with a large front porch and porch swing. There was a large front and back yard with lots of trees for climbing. I loved climbing trees. It was filled with Crepe Myrtle bushes that were loaded with beautiful flowers. It had to have been tough on her. She had already raised eight children, and now when she needed a calmer lifestyle, she had five very energetic children to care for.

She was definitely - old school - and when she wanted to give one of us a whipping, she would make you go out and pick your own switch. This was pure torture for us mentally, because you had to pick the right switch. You wanted a switch that would last long enough to satisfy her, but not too long. Then we would dance around her, try to avoid the switch and wear her out. It was really kind of fun. She was strict, but very she was loving, fair and caring. I loved to read and the only book she had was a huge, old, illustrated Bible. So I read that. It seemed like there was a lot of - wailing and gnashing of teeth. There was also a lot of – begetting - as I recall. The illustrations, in the Bible, were great though and I enjoyed them a lot. Mama Ginn hated to see her youngest child become an alcoholic and lose her children.

Mom was pretty resourceful in her own way though. A lot of Sunday mornings, we would visit different churches in town. She always took all of us kids. After the service, we would all go up to the front and get - saved. It always involved a lot of tears and laying on of hands. Then, she would let it be known that she needed food for all the poor, little children. The congregation would readily oblige by bringing bags of groceries for us. Then, we would head off to another church and get – saved - all over again. Truly, we were saved by the kindness of strangers!

I was like most small children and addicted to television. I watched - The Lone Ranger, Sky King and many other sit-coms. I watched - The Mickey Mouse Show - like so many kids at that time, and of course I was in love with -

Annette Funnicello. The Twilight Zone - was a favorite, but it was pretty scary for a kid. Mama Ginn lived in an old house in Athens, GA. The front room had the TV and the only air-conditioning, a window unit. This was still a fairly new home appliance, and only the really wealthy people had their whole house cooled. Those hot Georgia nights remain an unpleasant memory even today!

My bedtime happened to follow - The Twilight Zone. I would have to leave the cool, front room with the relative safety of family members. Then, I would close the door to the room, in order to save the cool air, and walk alone down a long, dark hallway to my room! Alone! I would climb into bed and pull the covers up tightly around my head for protection. Inevitably, the closet door would be slightly open. Everyone knew that it was full of monsters, demons and scary creatures that were just waiting for a chance to spring out of the closet and grab scared, little boys. Mom did not help by telling me not to let my arms and legs dangle off the bed, because – Bloody Bones - was waiting under the bed to grab you.

Mom’s drinking episodes were becoming much more frequent. She and Mama Ginn had many arguments about this. Many times they screamed and slapped each other. Mama Ginn tried to remind her that she had five children to care for. I tried to defend my mother. One episode remains in my mind. Mom was very drunk again. She was in the kitchen screaming at my grandmother, when she suddenly passed out on the floor. I did not know that drunks often pass out, so I was afraid and thought that something terrible was wrong. It was not.

I remember visiting relatives and they all wanted to listen to my chest to assess my breathing. I was not sure why. I did not know them then, and I still don’t. There was nothing anyone could really do in those days to help me anyway.

At about this time, my little brother was born. It really didn’t mean much to me at the time. He was just a crying baby that took more attention away from me. As a baby, he finally spoke his first word – hot. He had managed to pull the hot clothes iron down onto his hand and had gotten a pretty nasty burn from that episode.

I do remember vividly an episode that occurred one afternoon. I was watching TV, and my mother had left home for something, but now the program was over and she failed to come home. I kept waiting and waiting, but she never came. Finally, in a panic, I ran down the road looking for her and screaming. I was afraid that she had left me and that I would never see her again. It all worked out later, and I calmed down.

I have no memories of my mother ever holding me, or expressing love for me in any way! I was strongly, emotionally attached to her. I probably always will be! The mother-infant bond is extremely strong! That feeling began to change as I became older, and developed an awareness of all