A Tribute to Dr. Charles Fager (Papa) by Jeff Fager

We have heard so many stories today about watching him operate. Yesterday, I heard a good one from my childhood pal Chris Barker. He and our good friend Tim Lannigan were both considering pre-med in college, so they asked Papa if they could watch him perform an operation. They entered the OR, fully scrubbed and standing behind him with a clear view. The patient had been prepared for a brain stem operation. Papa made the first sweeping incision in the scalp. At that moment, Tim's knees began to buckle, and he went straight to the floor.

Chris said his knees buckled too, and he felt queasy, but he stood firm.

Neither of them pursued medicine.

My brother Chris spoke about occasionally tagging along with him at work. I loved doing that too, following Papa on his hospital rounds, where you had to break into a light jog just to keep pace with him.

Just out of college, I lived in the Back Bay and enjoyed stopping by the old clinic simply to visit. As Chris said, Papa was concerned about leaving it to come here. I was too. Where the hell would we park for Red Sox games? For free.

I loved that old clinic and walking past the long line of patients in the waiting room. There were always so many of them. His days were jam-packed. He would pause for a few minutes to talk with me, but I never saw him take any downtime. Ever.

He never cut people short, either. That included patiently dealing with the man who came to see him because he wanted Papa to remove the transmitter the CIA had installed in his brain.

I came to understand that he had to fit everything into his day if he was going to make it home in time for dinner with the family. And he almost always made it home for dinner. It mattered that much to him. Around that dinner table, through all those years, he kept up with each of his four children and everything we were doing in our lives. At the same time, we learned a great deal about him.

He told us stories about growing up in Brooklyn with his brother Don and his sister Jeanne. I love this one: one day in grade school, a child raised his hand and asked the teacher, "Why are all the smart kids Jewish?" The teacher answered, "Charlie Fager is smart, and he's not Jewish." Only in Brooklyn.

He also told us about his first medical experience, which did not go particularly well.

As a child, he went to have his tonsils removed. When he woke up, he said, "I know why I am sore here, but why am I so sore down there?"

The doctor explained, "While we were at it, we decided to circumcise you."

Oh great. Thanks a lot.

His uncle Manny performed that operation. Both of them.

Manny was known as Doc, and despite that early surprise, he became a tremendous inspiration to our dad.

Doc, his mother's brother, was a simple GP in New York City. He was kind, generous, and good. He did not charge patients who could not afford his services, and almost none of them could. Doc was a local hero, a true humanitarian devoted to caring for people. That was what young Charlie wanted to become. He wanted to be like Doc.

Dr. Lahey embodied the same ideal on a much larger scale. He had built a clinic with numerous departments, staffed by the finest doctors, all of whom cared about people and advanced our understanding of medicine, and all of whom were salaried. In later years, this became even more meaningful to Papa because he often told us how medicine in America had gone wrong. Giving doctors a financial incentive to operate went against everything in his nature. The ability to write "no charge" on a patient's paperwork for someone who could not afford treatment was central to this great institution. It made him proud.

Dr. Lahey offered him a job and asked how much he expected to earn each year. Papa said ten thousand dollars. Dr. Lahey said they would pay him eight. The following morning, Papa was summoned to the OR to see Dr. Lahey. He did not know what to expect, and he was nervous. When he arrived, Dr. Lahey told him, "This is going to feel like a kick in the pants." Now he was really nervous. Then Dr. Lahey continued, "It's your teeth. They look terrible. I want to fix them, and we'll pay for it." And he did. That marked the beginning of more than 50 years of service at Lahey Clinic. It was the second-best thing that ever happened to him.

The best was meeting our mother, 21-year-old Margaret Bulkley.

Together, they raised a family, and they made an amazing pair.

They were strict, and there were no favorites. They were happy and deeply in love. They set boundaries for us, and for the most part, we respected them. We were not allowed to watch television during the week. As Elizabeth said, he called it brain rot. That made quite an impression on me as a young child. Brain rot. Think about it. He had some credibility when it came to what might rot the brain.

Although we did not see much of him apart from dinner, we were always conscious of his presence. She made sure of that, and so did he. He was gone before we woke in the morning, but he would leave each of us a clipping from that day's newspaper or, more often, an individual list of chores. We knew those chores had to be finished before he returned home or, God forbid, we might disappoint him.

Growing up, I believe I can speak for all of us, including our wonderful brother Greg, when I say that our father was an inspiration.

He lived with dignity, humility, patience, selflessness, and goodness. He never spoke about those qualities. They were simply who he was.

About 12 years ago, CBS announced that Don Hewitt, the founder of 60 Minutes, would be stepping down and that I would replace him. It became a big story because Don was a legend. But the Boston Globe was interested in me, the local boy. A Globe reporter called and asked, "Can I assume Don Hewitt is your role model?" I said no. My dad is my role model. That quote appeared prominently in the newspaper the following day, above the fold, in the second or third paragraph. People approached Papa at the clinic throughout the day because they had read it. Being able to say that so publicly was one of the happiest moments of my life.

The flip side came from a friend who said to me: " Role model? Good luck with that. I was already 48 by then, and it was a worthless cause.

There is still hope for the grandchildren and great-grandchildren. One of them is here with us today: Simon Bulkley Grossman.

But keep in mind, kids, that there were other attributes.

Papa was never judgmental of others. I cannot remember a single petty word coming from him. Oh, and did I mention moderation? As in precisely measured two ounces of scotch every night, without a drop more.

He occasionally criticized us, but he never overdid it. He expected us to buckle down and achieve.

He used that phrase often: "Buckle down."

At the beginning of every school year, we heard this one: "Get off to a good start."

And we heard this one many times: "Tuck in your shirt at the dinner table."

There was something else he often said, which Chris mentioned: some things in life are worse than death. Papa opposed end-of-life treatment of any kind. He also feared having a stroke that might leave him lingering for years. But after suffering one this past April, he was gone within a matter of days. He died peacefully in our family home. He could not have scripted it any better.

Less than a week before his death, he called me as he always did, every Sunday night at 8 o'clock, at the end of 60 Minutes, to tell me what he thought about the program. He never lost interest in what we were doing. He also understood that, in recent years, he had joined one of my favorite demographics. You see, repeating stories is very important in our business, and people in that demographic cannot remember that they had not seen the story before.

Papa remained stoic in retirement, but retirement was not easy for him. Shortly after that luncheon, when he was feeling particularly raw about it, he was unpacking his clinic office into our Wellesley home with our sister Mary Lou. He turned to her and said: "How can I stop taking care of people?"

His goodness touched so many of us, and I believe that goodness alone will always serve as an inspiration. Although it may seem impossible to live up to every quality that made him so special, all of us can certainly try to be as good.