{"@context":"http://iiif.io/api/presentation/3/context.json","id":"https://centerforthehistoryoffamilymedicine.aviaryplatform.com/iiif/w08w95247n/manifest","type":"Manifest","label":{"en":["Dr. Harold Hedges and Merry Hedges"]},"logo":"https://d9jk7wjtjpu5g.cloudfront.net/organizations/logo_images/000/000/246/original/CenterForHistoryFamilyMedicine_2c_RGB.png?1773344256","metadata":[{"label":{"en":["Rights Statement"]},"value":{"en":["\u003cp\u003eThis item is protected by U.S. copyright and related rights. It is being made available by the Center for the History of Family Medicine as its rights-holder for noncommercial use, including sharing and adapting the work. No permission is required for noncommercial use so long as attribution is provided. All other uses require permission from the Center for the History of Family Medicine.  Disclaimer:  The views presented in this broadcast are the speaker’s own and do not represent those of CHFM or the AAFP Foundation. The information presented is for general, educational, or entertainment purposes and should not be considered legal, health, financial, or other advice. \u003c/p\u003e"]}},{"label":{"en":["Date"]},"value":{"en":["2021-04-15 (created)"]}},{"label":{"en":["Format"]},"value":{"en":["video"]}},{"label":{"en":["Keyword"]},"value":{"en":["Arkansas","family doctors","rural family medicine","physicians","Navy","veteran","polio epidemic","University of Arkansas"]}},{"label":{"en":["Subject"]},"value":{"en":["Arkansas Academy of Family Physicians (corporate name)"]}},{"label":{"en":["Language"]},"value":{"en":["English (primary)"]}}],"requiredStatement":{"label":{"en":["Attribution"]},"value":{"en":["\u003cp\u003eThis item is protected by U.S. copyright and related rights. It is being made available by the Center for the History of Family Medicine as its rights-holder for noncommercial use, including sharing and adapting the work. No permission is required for noncommercial use so long as attribution is provided. All other uses require permission from the Center for the History of Family Medicine. \u0026nbsp;Disclaimer: \u0026nbsp;The views presented in this broadcast are the speaker\u0026rsquo;s own and do not represent those of CHFM or the AAFP Foundation. The information presented is for general, educational, or entertainment purposes and should not be considered legal, health, financial, or other advice.\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e"]}},"provider":[{"id":"https://centerforthehistoryoffamilymedicine.aviaryplatform.com/aboutus","type":"Agent","label":{"en":["Center for the History of Family Medicine"]},"homepage":[{"id":"https://centerforthehistoryoffamilymedicine.aviaryplatform.com/","type":"Text","label":{"en":["Center for the History of Family Medicine"]},"format":"text/html"}],"logo":[{"id":"https://d9jk7wjtjpu5g.cloudfront.net/organizations/logo_images/000/000/246/original/CenterForHistoryFamilyMedicine_2c_RGB.png?1773344256","type":"Image"}]}],"thumbnail":[{"id":"https://d9jk7wjtjpu5g.cloudfront.net/collection_resource_files/thumbnails/000/194/776/small/Hedges_HaroldandMerry%284-15-2021%29.mp4_1688057013.jpg?1688057015","type":"Image","format":"image/jpeg"}],"items":[{"id":"https://centerforthehistoryoffamilymedicine.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2312/collection_resources/97672/file/194776","type":"Canvas","label":{"en":["Media File 1 of 1 - Hedges__Harold_and_Merry_(4-15-2021).mp4"]},"duration":8830.0212,"width":640,"height":360,"thumbnail":[{"id":"https://d9jk7wjtjpu5g.cloudfront.net/collection_resource_files/thumbnails/000/194/776/small/Hedges_HaroldandMerry%284-15-2021%29.mp4_1688057013.jpg?1688057015","type":"Image","format":"image/jpeg"}],"items":[{"id":"https://centerforthehistoryoffamilymedicine.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2312/collection_resources/97672/file/194776/content/1","type":"AnnotationPage","items":[{"id":"https://centerforthehistoryoffamilymedicine.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2312/collection_resources/97672/file/194776/content/1/annotation/1","type":"Annotation","motivation":"painting","body":{"id":"https://aviary-p-centerforthehistoryoffamilymedicine.s3.wasabisys.com/collection_resource_files/resource_files/000/194/776/original/Hedges__Harold_and_Merry_%284-15-2021%29.mp4?1688056997","type":"Video","format":"video/mp4","duration":8830.0212,"width":640,"height":360},"target":"https://centerforthehistoryoffamilymedicine.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2312/collection_resources/97672/file/194776","metadata":[]}]}],"annotations":[{"id":"https://centerforthehistoryoffamilymedicine.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2312/collection_resources/97672/file/194776/transcript/45020","type":"AnnotationPage","label":{"en":["Transcript of Dr. Harold Hedges and Merry Hedges Interview [Transcript]"]},"items":[{"id":"https://centerforthehistoryoffamilymedicine.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2312/collection_resources/97672/file/194776/transcript/45020/annotation/1","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Dr. Sam Taggart: \n\nGood afternoon, my name is Sam Taggart and today is 4/15/21. We are in the home of Dr. Harold and Merry Helen Hedges of Pulaski County on Hwy 10, about 10 miles from the freeway or something like that; a beautiful, absolutely beautiful home. We are here today to interview for several purposes; one is for them and the other is for the Arkansas Academy of Family Physician as Dr. Hedges is part of the institutional memory of that organization. \n\nThe best place to start and this is for the both of you.....is at the beginning: \n\nWhen and where were you were born? What were the circumstances of your birth? Talk about that a little bit. \n\nDr. Harold Hedges: \n\nI was born at Sparks Hospital in Fort Smith, Arkansas on July 3, 1934; so, I’m 86 going on my 87th year. My mother used to say that the first parade I was ever in I was about 5-6 days old because Sparks Hospital had a parade that she and I rode in.\n\n(All laughing).... \n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nTalk a little bit about your mother and dad; what were their names and when were they born.....as much as you know about all that kind of things.\n\nDr. Harold Hedges: \n\nMy father is Harold Herbert Hedges Sr. and I’m the third. So, we had a grandfather, father, me, and then our first son, Hal; he’s the fourth, but he didn’t want to have anybody the fifth.....so, that’s where the name dynasty stopped. My father had gone to law school at the University and when he graduated, it was during the depression, and they didn’t need a whole lot of lawyers. My mother was a secretary in Fort Smith and that’s where they met and married. My father had been married previously, but his first wife died in childbirth. Also dying in childbirth was Harold Hedges the third; so, I didn’t discover that until years later that he was previously married and there was a child who died along with his wife in childbirth. Right....probably six months or so...I’m not exactly sure...after I was born, my father’s aunt in Anguilla, Mississippi; her husband died of a heart attack, and he was like 48-49 and his wife was about 10-12 years younger. They had 4 children with the oldest being about 12-13 and so, his aunt.....that helped him through college; we packed up and moved to Anguilla, Mississippi. He helped run this plantation, “Greenfield’s Plantation,” over there. \n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nWhere is Anguilla?\n\nDr. Harold Hedges: \n\nIt’s about thirty miles south and east of Greenville.\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nSo, right in the middle of the delta....?\n\n\n\nDr. Harold Hedges: \n\nRight smack dab in the middle of the delta; yes. So, we lived over there until I was 6 or so; I remember starting school there in a small school in Anguilla. But we moved back from Anguilla \n\nabout between the first grade...I was in first grade at Sylvan Hills also; so, I’m not exactly sure, but I was in two different schools in the first grade. We came back and he went to work for the International Harvest Company and he remained with the International Harvest Company until he died sometime later.\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nWhat is the origin of the name Hedges; English, Scotch-Irish....?\n\nMerry Helen Hedges: \n\nEnglish?...”\n\nDr. Harold Hedges: \n\nProbably all the above; in fact, I tried to call my brother right before because he is interested in all that to ask him if we came over on the Mayflower, the Pinta, or the Santa Maria...(Laughing)....because I’m not sure exactly when we came over. Our family came over and settled in and around Merryland and then, there were some Hedges that broke off and went to Ohio. I think it was from the Ohio bunch that the Hedges finally moved into Arkansas. I’m not sure and I can’t tell you exactly when they did that, but probably in the mid 1800s or something like that.\n\nMerry Helen Hedges: \n\nAround Fort Smith and the Subiaco area.\n\nDr. Harold Hedges: \n\nYeah...yeah... \n\n \n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nWere they part of the.....I shouldn’t be asking you guys like this, but are you guys Catholic?\n\nDr. Harold Hedges: \n\nNo, we are Episcopalians.\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nThe only reason I’m asking about Catholicism is because a lot of the people who populated the Arkansas River Valley, from Fort Smith on down, were Catholics that were recruited from Southern Germany and Northern France.\n\nDr. Harold Hedges: \n\nRight and my father grew up around Scranton and where was Dale Bumpers from? \n\n \n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nCharleston...\n\nDr. Harold Hedges: \n\nCharleston, yeah.....and Charleston; so, we have families in that area.\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nWhat about your mother’s family?\n\nDr. Harold Hedges: \n\nMother’s family was from Oklahoma. She was, as far as I know, born and raised in Heavener, Oklahoma which is....\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nWhat was her maiden name?\n\nDr. Harold Hedges: \n\nBates; Geraldine Bates and she hated the name Geraldine, so we called her Geri Bates.\n\nMerry Helen Hedges: \n\nShe was always Geri...\n\nDr. Harold Hedges: \n\nYeah...she had one sister and three brothers; they are all deceased now. My mother died three days short of being 100 and for the last several years of her life, she kept saying, “I do not want to live to be 100 years old”...”I do not want to live to be 100 years old”.... and she didn’t.\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nDo you have any Indian blood in your family that you know of?\n\nDr. Harold Hedges: \n\nYou know, I always thought that there was; but as far as what my brother has found out, there is no.....\n\nMerry Helen Hedges: \n\nWow and you did a DNA test with Ancestry not too long...\n\nDr. Harold Hedges: \n\nRight and there wasn’t a drop; there wasn’t even a half a blood in there. But, I’ve been telling that I’m part Indian all my life....\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nWell, as you well know, you can’t tell a whole lot of difference between Heavener, Oklahoma and right across the line in Waldron.\n\nDr. Harold Hedges: \n\nThat’s right...\n\n(All Laughing)....\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nThey’re pretty well the same.\n\nDr. Harold Hedges: \n\nThe Poteau, Heavener, and Waldron area....it is.....it is... \n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nBy the way, we were talking earlier before we started this about the fact that when we did our around the state trip, we wouldn’t ride on the main highways...we’d got off on the main small highways and one of the best meals that we had was in Haddic....just up the road from Poteau, but it happens to be in Arkansas. So you started your life in Fort Smith, was in a parade in Fort Smith because of the hospital, and then, ended up going to Mississippi for a while....tell me about ....\n\nDr. Harold Hedges: \n\nWell, do you want to pick up on Merry Helen first?\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nSure; let’s start with you now, Merry Helen.....same questions and same process...\n\nMerry Helen Hedges: \n\nWell, I was born in Little Rock and grew up here. I lived her all my life except for excursions to college and when Harold was in the Navy; we lived in Florida. I was born on Christmas day and for the first three or four years of my life, I thought the whole world celebrated my birthday.\n\n(Laughing)\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nDo you have brothers and sisters? \n\nMerry Helen Hedges: \n\nI have a brother; yes, four years younger than I who lives in Alabama.\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nYou told me this earlier, but I don’t know that I got in on video...your maiden name is what?\n\nMerry Helen Hedges: \n\nNevins.....N-E-V-I-N-S.\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nThat clearly sounds English...\n\nMerry Helen Hedges: \n\nIt is an English name, but my father was not English. He changed his name. He and his family were refugees from Poland; they were Jews and came to this country when my father was very, very young...3-4 years old. His name was “Nevindomski” and he went all through school, all through college, and when it came.....it was in that time in our history where there was great bias against the Jewish people in this country ...in order to get his work that he was qualified to do, his boss told him that he needed to change his name; so he changed it from “Nevindomski” to “Nevins.” So, he is not English.\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nDo y’all have.....I know that you have been aware of Amail Chudy from a professional point; but, you know, he has a similar history. His family is from the area around Gdansk, up in that part of Poland, near the Baltic Sea. They came over about the time that the French and German Catholics were coming over and they settled in ...I’m trying to think of the name; the little town outside of North Little Rock...\n\nDr. Harold Hedges: \n\nOh...\n\nMerry Helen Hedges: \n\nMarche.\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nMarche; yeah, they settled there and .....\n\nMerry Helen Hedges: \n\nThey took us out there for dinner one year.\n\nDr. Harold Hedges: \n\nYeah...\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nSome Count had gotten the land and it was the same kind of deal; except none of them liked where they did and all of them ended up going to North Little Rock.\n\nDr. Harold Hedges: \n\nIt’s interesting, she was delivered by Dr. Rodgers, Clyde Rodgers, and Clyde Rodgers then delivered our first two sons...Hal and John.\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nReally?\n\nDr. Harold Hedges: \n\n20 some-odd years later....\n\nMerry Helen Hedges: \n\nYes, yes.....so, my mother was always from the west Little Rock area and she and my father met.\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nDo y’all remember much about your.....by the way, I’m asking you questions that if your grandchildren haven’t asked you these questions already, they should be..... (Laughing)....\n\nMerry Helen Hedges: \n\nAh ha.....\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nSo, do ya’ll remember much about your childhood? Your first few years of life in Mississippi and then coming back to Arkansas...was it mainly with family?\n\n \n\nDr. Harold Hedges: \n\nWell, my family moved around a lot because of my father’s business. He came here and went to work for the International Harvest Company and we lived at Sylvan Hills at that time. As he went up in the company, we went from Sylvan Hills to Texarkana, Texarkana to Little Rock, Little Rock to St. Louis, St Louis back to Little Rock, back to St. Louis and then in 1947, we moved here to Little Rock and we’ve been in Little Rock ever since.\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nSo at age 13, you moved back and settled; but before that, you.... \n\nDr. Harold Hedges: \n\nRight and this is where Merry Helen and I met for the first time in junior high school.\n\n \n\nMerry Helen Hedges: \n\nYeah, at Pulaski Heights Junior High in eighth grade study hall.\n\nDr. Harold Hedges: \n\nSo, we’ve been married about 80 some-odd years...\n\n(All laughing)....\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nTalk a little bit about your memories of your childhood; before school or early elementary school. Was it happy? Because that was during WWII......\n\nDr. Harold Hedges: \n\nWhy don’t you say something about yours and then, you can just get on and I’ll take him to Anguilla.\n\nMerry Helen Hedges: \n\nI had very loving, happy, parents. During the depression and the beginning of WWII, my father was out of the home a lot; he was on the War Production Board and he spent a lot of time in Washington But, my memories are very happy memories...he would write me letters; even before I could read, I’d get little letters from him in the mail when he couldn’t be home. So, I had a very happy childhood and the reason I thought the whole world celebrated my birthday was because my parents made such a big deal out of it; you know being born on Christmas Day, they wanted that day to be my birthday. I later found out about Jesus”......... (Laughing)....\n\n\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nI don’t know if y’all know about Tom Dillard or not, but Tom is a good friend of mine. He was born the day before Christmas......\n\nMerry Helen Hedges: \n\nOh, that’s hard...\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nSo, he never got to celebrate; he complains that he never got to celebrate his birthday....\n\nMerry Helen Hedges: \n\nYeah, that’s hard; if you’re going to be born nearby, you need to be Christmas Day I guess... (Laughing).... \n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nWere your families religious?\n\nMerry Helen Hedges: \n\nMine were not; but I had some, what you might call...when I look back on my life, when I wrote my first spiritual autobiography, I realized that I always had known God...even though, I never went to church with my family. My family always; you know, they didn’t have anything against my being interested in religion, but I just was....and from an early, early age. I’d make friends with people so that I could spend the night with them on Saturday night and go to church with them on Sunday; so, I went to many different churches. In the 8th grade, I discovered the Episcopal Church; my new friend was Episcopalian and so from then on, I was Episcopalian. \n\nDr. Harold Hedges: \n\nExcept for a short little side deal in the Methodist Church while...I was Methodist and we got married in a Methodist Church.\n\nMerry Helen Hedges: \n\nYes....\n\nDr. Harold Hedges: \n\nThen when we got out; we were in the service for three and a half years and when we came back, we went to the Episcopal Church......we’ve been with the Episcopal Church ever since.\n\nMerry Helen Hedges: \n\nBut my family, you know, thought it was a great idea for me to do that and they liked that I did it.\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nTalk a little bit about your elementary school and your first years of school..... \n\n\n\nMerry Helen Hedges: \n\nMy first years were at Merry Dodge Hodges one room school house down on Main Street; it now...Richard Butler owns it now and it’s part of the Quapaw Historic district....like 17th and Main. I went there for my first three years of school and then, my parents built a home in West Little Rock and I went to Forrest Park. \n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nWest Little Rock at that point would’ve been where the Heights are right now? Close to where the Heights are right now; yeah....\n\nDr. Harold Hedges: \n\nHer house is on Club Road and Monroe...\n\nMerry Helen Hedges: \n\nNorth Monroe...\n\nDr. Harold Hedges: \n\nNorth Monroe and there was a gravel road from the curb up there in the Heights, where ________ Cleaners is...I don’t know if you know where that is...it lead down to her house, a gravel road at the time.\n\nMerry Helen Hedges: \n\nYes, it was gravel and we had a wonderful time playing in it. We also had a wonderful time playing in the woods all around there and Walker’s Woods. It was....\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nIn those days, they had street cars....\n\nDr. Harold Hedges: \n\nUh huh.\n\nMerry Helen Hedges: \n\nYes...\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nDo you remember using the street cars a lot?\n\nDr. Harold Hedges: \n\nYes, we went to school in them....we went to school on the street car.\n\nMerry Helen Hedges: \n\nEvery morning.... when we were in junior high, we would go down to Pulaski Heights on the street car.\n\nDr. Harold Hedges: \n\nYep.....and at the time, there used to be a swimming pool; White City..was it White City?\n\nMerry Helen Hedges: \n\nThis is way predated our living out there.\n\nDr. Harold Hedges: \n\nYeah...where the Heights Theater was; it was in that area. The Heights Theater was a real active theater for us because we’d go there almost every weekend or whatever to see if anything changed. But as far as my early, early, years growing up in Anguilla, Mississippi, my closest friend...I had several white friends, but my closest friend was a young lad, Charles Lee. Charles Lee was the grandson of the cook for my father’s aunt at the plantation. He and I ran around together all the time.\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nWas he African-American or Chinese?\n\nDr. Harold Hedges: \n\nAfrican-American; we climbed trees, ran through corn fields and cotton fields, we rode mules, we rode horses, and we had all kinds of fun. A lot of folks wouldn’t go down through the negro part of town. Charles Lee and I; Charles Lee was my...he was about 2-3 years older than I was \n\nand so, he was my guardian and I could go anywhere in Anguilla; not that Anguilla was that big. It was only about 350 white folks in it anyway. I remember starting school over there and we went to school in August because they would let school out in September or October for folks to pick cotton. So, I’ve hoed cotton and I’ve picked cotton; not a lot, but I thought I’d pick cotton rather than drag a sack.\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nYou knew you didn’t want to do that......\n\nDr. Harold Hedges: \n\nThat’s right.”.......... (All laughing)...That’s exactly right.\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nI was raised on a farm with that same kind of situation and I knew I didn’t want to do it.\n\nDr. Harold Hedges: \n\nThe biggest job that I ever had was; I was...at this time, I mean, mules and wagons were the way you got the cotton to the cotton gin and my kin set me up on the front seat of this wagon to take this cotton back to the gin and I thought I was this big-something-or-other. They could’ve sent that cotton to the gin, that wagon with that mule to the cotton gin without me; he’d made that trip so many times back and forth...but, I thought I was really something when I took this big wagon full of cotton to the cotton gin.\n\nMerry Helen Hedges: \n\nthe mule took you...... (Laughing)\n\nDr. Harold Hedges: \n\nThe mule could’ve done it. \n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nWere there any, again I’m speaking to both of you, significant people in your life who impressed you or had a big impact on you in that first 8-10 or even 15 years of your life? Teachers, preachers, business people, grandparents....... \n\nDr. Harold Hedges: \n\nYeah, I had pneumonia I guess when I was 4 or 5 years old; I don’t remember it, but I was told that I had pneumonia. There was a family doctor and his name was Sam Goodman; he came by the house and treated me apparently and kind of nursed me back to health....that story stuck back in my mind for years, and years, and years of that family doctor and what he did and that’s when I really began...that started my track to be a physician.\n\n \n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nHad there ever been any doctors in your family; either one of you?\n\nDr. Harold Hedges: \n\nNo...No, not in mine and I don’t think in yours either; nuh uh, no....even....when we were in medical school, between our junior and senior year, we did our preceptorship....\n\nMerry Helen Hedges: \n\nThey may have cut those out by that time you were there...\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nNo, they were still doing it.\n\nDr. Harold Hedges: \n\nI asked the powers to be if I could go back to Anguilla and do my preceptorship with Dr. Goodman and they let me do that.\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nWow, that’s neat.\n\nDr. Harold Hedges: \n\nYeah, it was neat.\n\nMerry Helen Hedges: \n\nIt was.\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nWhen you got there....we are jumping forward, but I think that was a good thing to comment on....but when you got there, was it what you expected it to be? What he was doing.....the work that he was doing…\n\n\n\nDr. Harold Hedges: \n\nYou know, I didn’t know what kind of expectations I had at the time. I just remember that this.....I had known him; as I grew up, I knew Dr. Goodman for a good while. Even after we left when I was six years old, especially when we were living in St. Louis, every summer I would go back to Anguilla. We were living in an apartment house in St. Louis, the second floor of a three-story apartment house, and my father’s aunt and her children would let me tag along with them if I wasn’t with Charles Lee in the summertime.\n\nMerry Helen Hedges: \n\nIn Mississippi....\n\nDr. Harold Hedges: \n\nIn Mississippi, yeah...so, I knew, or got to know, Dr. Goodman and everybody else in Anguilla a whole lot better as I got older.\n\n \n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nDid you ever feel, you mentioned this earlier that you had....because of your dad’s work, you had had gone from place to place to place after you came back to Fort Smith....did you ever feel like you didn’t like that? I mean that was just part of what you had to do...\n\nDr. Harold Hedges: \n\nYeah...no, I jumped right into it and I never regretted.....the only thing that I regretted was one of those middle trips from Little Rock to St. Louis; somehow I got put back a year in school and so when I left Little Rock, I was kind of in the middle of the pack as far as size and when I got to St. Louis, I jumped up a grade and I was the runt of the class. So, I was always that until around junior high or high school, when we took a spurt; but I was always the little guy in class.\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nWhat did you do for fun when you were a small kid? Did you like sports, hunting, or fishing?\n\nDr. Harold Hedges: \n\nWell, I was.....as far as sports were concerned, I was a swimmer. I took up swimming....\n\nMerry Helen Hedges: \n\nCompetitive swimming...\n\nDr. Harold Hedges: \n\nYeah...the last time we moved from St. Louis to Little Rock, we lived in the Albert Pike Hotel until our house was ready and it was right next to the Boys Club; right next door to the Boys Club and so, I’d come home after school and I’d go over there and swim. I got interested in completive swimming and I swam until we went to college.\n\nMerry Helen Hedges: \n\nYeah...\n\nDr. Harold Hedges: \n\nI was fairly good at it; I wasn’t outstanding, but I did at one point on the 50 meter...I shared the state record with somebody, which has been broken over, and over, and over....”\n\n(Laughing)....\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nHow about you Merry; what kinds of things were you involved in school: sports, reading, or things that you really enjoyed doing? \n\nMerry Helen Hedges: \n\nWell, it was during WWII and in school, we were all....in elementary school, I could walk to school and walk home, which was delightful; but, I’m thinking of rationing that made a big impact.... because we could have one pair of shoes a year and so, when we walked to school and back, we picked out a rock and we kicked that rock to see if we could kick that same rock all the way to school or the same rock all the way home...our little round shoes had these reinforced toes in them and they’d just get scuffed up.”....... (Laughing)...\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nYou tore them up... \n\nMerry Helen Hedges: \n\nIt was also during the years of the polio epidemic and you know, I thought of that with this pandemic that we just went through...but with Polio, it was mostly with children. I remember all the swimming pools closed down and all the movie theaters closed down and I spent my summers, two or three summers, there in my home and climbing trees. I had a cousin who would come and we would play, “Let’s pretend” and we’d walk down into the woods and build around tree trucks; we’d build little fairy villages, but we were pretty isolated. I never participated in any sports. Horseback riding, I lived on the back of a horse from junior high school until I went to college.\n\n \n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nAt some point, you got interested in gardening; when was that?\n\nDr. Harold Hedges: \n\nWhen we moved down here.\n\nMerry Helen Hedges: \n\nYeah...no, I did a lot of gardening when we lived in town, but it wasn’t this kind of gardening; it was rock gardening.\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nWhen you both got into junior high school, where there any people again who had a big impact on you and pushed you in one direction or another? I’ll keep coming back to that as we go along: Good teachers, preachers or priests in the church, your mom or dad, your grandparents.....\n\n\nDr. Harold Hedges: \n\nThere was a teacher in junior high school named Ms. Knox and she was a biology teacher....\n\nMerry Helen Hedges: \n\nNo....Ms. Knox that I recall was a history teacher.\n\nDr. Harold Hedges: \n\nWell, listen, she may have been; but anyway, her name was Ms. Knox and she told me one time, because I was interested in biology and that sort of thing at the time, she thought I’d make a good doctor, which kind of built on what I was already thinking anyway. But, that’s the only person who I can really recall in junior high school........\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nNow even in those days, going to medical school and going to college was kind of ....it wasn’t cheap; it wasn’t cheap. Did that seem out of range to you at all?\n\nDr. Harold Hedges: \n\nNo, not at that time; my parents saved for me to go to college and we didn’t have any debt. Merry Helen and I got married after the first year in medical school and in college, I worked in the summertime. I was a lifeguard, which went along with my swimming at the Riverdale Country Club for three years, and so, I saved all that I could. College wasn’t all that expensive at the time; I forget now what it was.\n\nMerry Helen Hedges: \n\nThe University of Arkansas was where he went.\n\nDr. Harold Hedges: \n\nSeems like it was like $1,000 a semester or $800.00 a semester; I don’t feel like it was.....\n\n \n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nWas education a big deal for your families?\n\nMerry Helen Hedges: \n\nOh yes, for mine.\n\nDr. Harold Hedges: \n\nYeah...\n\nMerry Helen Hedges: \n\nOh yes, big.....from my father.\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nBut they definitely wanted you to go to school.\n\n\nMerry Helen Hedges: \n\nOh yes.\n\nDr. Harold Hedges: \n\nHer father graduated from the Bravo School of Mines in Missouri and he was a chemical engineer. So, he had a degree in chemical engineering and he was at one point Vice President of Owen Madison Chemical Corporation. The Madison part of it was a chemical corporation in North Little Rock and they merged or Owen bought them.\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nWhat informed your decision on where you would go to college?\n\nMerry Helen Hedges: \n\nWell, that’s funny because I loved school; but I was an average student and so, you know, there weren’t anything like scholarships or anything.....I didn’t even know what one of those were, but I wanted just to be in Little Rock. Myself and two of my friends picked a school together; we wanted to go to Mount Vernon Junior College in Washington, DC because one of my friend’s older sister had gone there and we thought that would be marvelous to be in Washington. So, the three of us all applied and of course, we were all accepted easily. So, I went there two years and then transferred to the University for two years; my last two years and that’s when Harold went into medical school. \n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nSo, what informed your decision on where you would go to school?\n\nDr. Harold Hedges: \n\nThere was a couple of things; somewhere along the way...I have a good friend here in Little Rock, his name is Bill, and he and I have been buddies for years and years....his father had some connections with the Senators and so, we got the idea, “Let’s go to the Naval Academy”. So, I forgot which Senator it was, it wasn’t....anyway, one of the Senators did get Bill appointed to the Naval Academy and there was somebody else who was a backup. But, he did get me a backup to somebody who was going to WestPoint; I wasn’t really interested in going to WestPoint and so, I wasn’t really interested in that. Billy went off to Annapolis and everybody else, friends of ours, was going to the University....\n\nMerry Helen Hedges: \n\nYour father went to the University.\n\nDr. Harold Hedges: \n\nYeah and my father went to the University; he was a KA up there and he was really interested in me becoming a KA. The KAs all but vanished from the University of Arkansas at that time, so he was busy the 2-3 years before I came along to go up there trying to get the KAs back on campus and active. I wasn’t interested in being a KA; none of my friends were going to be KAs. My closest friends and a couple of folks a year or two ahead of me were Sigma Chi at the University; so, I was at the University going premed and I became a Sigma Chi. I joined the Sigma Chi fraternity, but I was never really, really, that active in it because you just don’t get that active in premed.\n\n \n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nNo; no, you got other things to do...... (All Laughing)....\n\nDr. Harold Hedges: \n\nYeah...\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nSo you guys first met back in junior high school; had y’all dated in high school?\n\nDr. Harold Hedges: \n\nOff and on...\n\nMerry Helen Hedges: \n\nWell, not until.......we started dating the summer after we graduated.\n\nDr. Harold Hedges: \n\nSeriously; yeah.\n\nMerry Helen Hedges: \n\nSeriously....but we grew up with the same big group of friends and it was very interesting and unique; we all dated each other all the time. Every once in a while somebody would start going steady, but none of my girl friends were ever without a date. I mean, we always had a date on a Friday night or Saturday night and it was always with a different person. Harold was very much part of that group.....\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nSo, y’all were about the same year.....\n\nMerry Helen Hedges: \n\nYes.\n\nDr. Harold Hedges: \n\nYes; I did marry an older woman.\n\nMerry Helen Hedges: \n\nYeah, I’m 18 months older than him.\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nOk....\n\nNow wait, wait, wait a minute.....if you were the least bit attached, what did you think about her going off to Washington DC?\n\nDr. Harold Hedges: \n\nYeah.....well, that....I knew....I don’t remember exactly what it was, but I knew that that’s just the way it was; I didn’t have a whole lot to say about....\n\n(All Laughing)\n\nBut when we were apart, I was lonesome; in fact, I got kind of down one time and Tom Raney, one of my old friends, called.... because she hadn’t written me a letter or something....\n\nMerry Helen Hedges: \n\nI hadn’t written you; I got up there and I didn’t write anybody. \n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nYou were having a good time.\n\nMerry Helen Hedges: \n\nRight, I was busy studying and you know, kind of creating a new life in a new place. So, Tom called me and said, “Merry Helen, write Harold or call him”.....(Harold laughing).....and then, it dawned on me....\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nYou mentioned as early as the physician in Anguilla that you had already started the process of thinking you really would like to go into medicine....and you mentioned liberal arts; did it go any further than just liberal arts? Was there something that you wanted to do?\n\nMerry Helen Hedges: \n\nWell, we had really three sons in three years; our oldest was 2 ½ when the third one was born and it took me years to recover from three pregnancies like that......you wouldn’t understand that.”\n\nDr. Harold Hedges: \n\nGo back a little earlier.....what she was before we got married; her major was art history.\n\nMerry Helen Hedges: \n\nYes.\n\nDr. Harold Hedges: \n\nOnce we decided to get married, we knew that she was going to have to work for the first year, or two, or three; so, she switched to education then.\n\nMerry Helen Hedges: \n\nYeah; elementary education.\n\nDr. Harold Hedges: \n\nElementary education and after we got married, she taught....\n\nMerry Helen Hedges: \n\nSchool for two years.....\n\nDr. Harold Hedges: \n\nFor two years....... (Both laughing)...\n\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nSo after the two years, you came back to the University.....\n\nMerry Helen Hedges: \n\nTwo years at Washington and then....\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nThen you were at the University at this point?\n\nMerry Helen Hedges: \n\nYeah.\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nWhen did you start to get serious?\n\nMerry Helen Hedges: \n\nOh, we were serious really after.....in fact after my second year, I came home....I think it was Thanksgiving maybe or Christmas...I came home my second year and I was struggling with what I wanted to major in; I was really interested in archeology. So, I was in my dormitory in the kitchen lighting a cigarette on an electric burner, I remember, and I was talking to God and I was saying, “What....I have to make a decision now...what am I going to take?” and I heard within myself, “Merry Helen, you always wanted to be a wife and a mother”...so, I went home Thanksgiving and asked him to marry me.\n\nDr. Harold Hedges: \n\nShe did....she asked me.\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\n(Laughing)......That’s good.....that’s good.\n\nDr. Harold Hedges: \n\nI said, “Yes”......I was afraid nobody else would ask me.\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\n(Laughing).....That’s wonderful......that’s wonderful; that is a great take on that...\n\nMerry Helen Hedges: \n\nBut, I ended up...after our three sons all left the home, because they left bang, bang, bang...I didn’t know what I ‘d do with my time; my priest, I talked to her about it, suggested that I do clinical pastoral education at Arkansas Children’s Hospital .\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nOh wow...\n\n\n\nMerry Helen Hedges: \n\nSo, I did chaplaincy training for two years there and then, I went to UAMS and did a year intern as a pastor.\n\n \n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nWhat years was this?\n\nMerry Helen Hedges: \n\nI’m talking about 19.....’85 comes to mind, but I’m not good at remembering those kinds of details....but, it began about 1985. I felt called to be a priest in the Episcopal Church, so I started during those times of being a Chaplin of the hospital my journey and ended up going to the seminary for a year and a half and then ordained a Deacon in the Episcopal Church; so, I’m a retired Deacon now.\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nYour college years were from what date to what date approximately?\n\nDr. Harold Hedges: \n\nOk; let’s see, we graduated from 1951 to 1954 and I went the three years at the University and then everybody after the third year out there was going ahead and trying to get signed up for medical school the next year; the idea was if you did it two years in a row, they’d know you were serious. So, you really weren’t serious about getting into medical school after three years up there......I had taken three years of premed all labs, chemistry, biology, and zoology...I was looking forward to the fourth year of not having any of those things and I could take anything; well, I got into medical school after three years...so, I didn’t get a break.\n\n \n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\n(Laughing).....\n\nOk, so we are now mid to late college and a little bit beyond that in time; you knew you were going to go to medical school...by the way, I forgot to ask you this earlier; was Dr. Sachs teaching organic at the University when you were there?\n\nDr. Harold Hedges: \n\nNo.\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nHe wasn’t...\n\nDr. Harold Hedges: \n\nNo, Stacks...\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nSachs...I think he must have predated you...\n\nDr. Harold Hedges: \n\nYeah, he must have; in fact. I don’t remember him.\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nAgain back on this subject, because I think it’s important; did you have any people when you were in college...any teachers, preachers, ministers....who had a big impact on you and set your direction in one path or another? \n\nDr. Harold Hedges: \n\nUh, you know, I can’t remember any specific instructor that did that; I liked them all and they pushed me along the way. Nobody said, “I don’t think you have what it takes to be a doctor”....nobody ever told me that; probably said other things (laughing)....but nobody ever said anything like that. \n\n \n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nDid you make good grades?\n\nDr. Harold Hedges: \n\nYeah, I was a “A”,”B”, “C” student...more “B”s than anything else. \n\nMerry Helen Hedges: \n\nDid you tell him about breaking your neck in....\n\nDr. Harold Hedges: \n\nI was....that’s what I was trying to think....I had a kind of unusual deal; I was a cheerleader at the University of Arkansas....that’s a good story right there. A friend of mine and I...did you go to the University?\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nNu uh....\n\nDr. Harold Hedges: \n\nWell, there is a beer joint called “Georgia’s” up at Fayetteville complete, at that time, with a dirt and peanut floor and all that. George Morgan was a.....he’d pledged Sigma Chi and I had pledged Sigma Chi and we were in Georgia’s drinking beer as freshman. There was a young woman who was there, I don’t think George had a date with her or not, but anyway she needed a ride over to tryouts for Razorbacks as a cheerleader. George had a car and so, she talked George into taking her over to try out for the cheerleader and so, I went along with that. George and I tried out for cheerleaders as well as her; I had never lead a cheer in my life...ever...I ended up being a razorback cheerleader and so did George.\n\n(Laughing)....\n\nMerry Helen Hedges: \n\nAnd the girl .....\n\n \n\nDr. Harold Hedges: \n\nShe wasn’t picked......so for my three years I was a cheerleader, during the sophomore year, we were in the Chi Omega’s former....\n\n\nMerry Helen Hedges: \n\nAmphitheatre...\n\nDr. Harold Hedges: \n\nAmphitheatre.....we were doing some tricks and flips and we had a flip that I did over the cheerleaders who were on the ground.....I got airborne and I realized that I hadn’t got enough room to run to get enough speed to do this and complete this thing...I ended up landing on my head and I broke my neck. I didn’t...I knew I had pain when I got up, but I wasn’t paralyzed or anything like that. I had some numbness and some things and so, I went out to find a place to get a drink and I think it was Sarah Kay....yeah, a good friend of ours from Little Rock who... I mentioned Billy Humphreys a little while ago; Billy and Sarah were very close and they ended up getting married some years later.....but anyway, we were there and I kept hurting more and more and her father was a doctor; so, she kind of insisted that I need to go to the hospital. So, we went to the hospital and I ended up in a cast; at that time, they didn’t have that little thing used to take the weight off of your cervical spine....so, I had a cast from here to here...a body cast.\n\n \n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nWow....\n\nMerry Helen Hedges: \n\nHis arms were moveable...\n\nDr. Harold Hedges: \n\nMy arms were loose....\n\nMerry Helen Hedges: \n\nAnd here he is a premed student...\n\nDr. Harold Hedges: \n\nYea and I\n\nMerry Helen Hedges: \n\nHis head was up like this; he looked like Frankenstein.\n\nDr. Harold Hedges: \n\nOf course, I went home and had to leave school; but everybody was at school and I was at home....finally, I wasn’t hurting anymore and I could get around; so, I called the school and said, “I think I want to come back and try to finish this semester, but, I’ll drop several courses”... I couldn’t take a full load; so, I dropped a couple of courses and kept a couple of course. I went back up there and I’d haul this cast up my shoulders ....so I’d heist it up and walk all over campus. I’d sit in the library...you know, you can’t hold your arms up very long and I couldn’t read very long, but I finally decided if I had some prism glasses I could read...so, I got some prism glasses and this hulk would be sitting in the library staring out that way reading his lessons..... (Laughing)....it was kind of crazy... \n\n \n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nHow long was that a problem?\n\nDr. Harold Hedges: \n\nAbout two months...yeah.....and then the next summer, I came down here and I picked up the two classes at UALR. So the next year, I finished out.\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nAgain, I think you already said this, but your college years were between...\n\nDr. Harold Hedges: \n\n51...\n\nMerry Helen Hedges: \n\n51\n\nDr. Harold Hedges: \n\nand 54; I started medical school in ‘54 and got out in ’58...I graduated in ‘58.\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nAnd had you finished school by this time?\n\nMerry Helen Hedges: \n\nYeah...yes, I was...\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nWhen did y’all marry?\n\nDr. Harold Hedges: \n\nWe.....after my first year; I wasn’t going to get married until I was sure I could make it through medical school and I knew if I could make it through the first year, you know, I had it made. We lost 6....we started out with 96 in our class and in six months, we lost 6 of them for one reason or another; I don’t even know what the .......\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nYou started out over at the old McArthur Park and you were a protégé at least to some extent or another with Jeff Banks.\n\nDr. Harold Hedges: \n\nYes....absolutely....a fantastic person.\n\n \n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nTalk about your relationship with him.\n\n\nDr. Harold Hedges: \n\nIt was good; it was good. He had to dress me down like he dressed everybody down; it wasn’t any different than anybody else. You know, the amazing thing about Jeff Banks is he knew where every single person was every night; if you were out carousing around, he would come over and say, “Well, I see you had a good time with grandma” or wherever you were. No, Jeff Banks; he was quite a fellow.\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nSomebody told me, I can’t remember who it was, that within a week after you arrived on campus, he knew everybody’s name.\n\nDr. Harold Hedges: \n\nAbsolutely...\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nHe knew everybody’s name; that’s just amazing to me.\n\nMerry Helen Hedges: \n\nIsn’t that amazing?\n\n \n\nDr. Harold Hedges: \n\nHe did and he would call you by your first name just right away.\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nWhat did you think about the first two years of medical school?\n\nDr. Harold Hedges: \n\n....They were tough; that first year. I didn’t....I’m not a chemist; I liked the biology, but that organic chemistry just was beyond me. I mean I made it through it, but I didn’t enjoy organic chemistry, the ______ cycle, and all that kind of stuff; I thought what in the world does this have to do with the practice of medicine. After 61 years of practice, I still want to know what the ____ cycle has to do with it.... (Laughing)... \n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nWere there any teachers during that period of time, besides Jeff Banks, who had a significant impact on you, that you remember either negative or positively?\n\nDr. Harold Hedges: \n\nYeah, well, one was Ben Price; Ben Price was a cardiologist here. You know, I had gotten....you just have ups and downs going through medical school and I remember I had gotten down one time and it had something to do with a little test that I didn’t do very well on. I didn’t do well on it because I got called out half way through the test to do something with a patient that I was supposed to be following that morning or something; I don’t remember what it was, but Ben tool me aside and said, “You know, don’t worry about these tests; you just worry about tests and tests grades....you know you’re going to make it through medical school, you’re going to do fine, and you’re going to be good”....da-ta-da-ta-da...I mean it wasn’t but about a three minute conversation, but it was.. I think... the first time somebody ever took me aside to let me know that I was getting good enough to make it through.... it was...it was.....it was a good thing; so. \n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nOk now, let’s talk about the first time you had jobs that had some medical import....tell me about that; you had mentioned this earlier.\n\nDr. Harold Hedges: \n\nAlright; I went to work at St. Vincent when I was a freshman in medical school. My first job was sharpening needles for reuse and at the time, the lab and x-ray were together at St. Vincent’s; they weren’t two separate parts. Then, I got to learn how to do lab work, which helped me tremendously through medical school because a lot of my fellow students couldn’t stick anybody and get blood from them. I, then, moved over to the x-ray department when they separated and so, I had a lot of chance to take x-rays and to develop x-rays. I was the priMerry developer, but then they taught me to take x-rays; those two things really helped me later on in my medical career. \n\n \n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nSo, how did you....I’m having trouble getting a mental image of this; how you would sharpen a needle.\n\nMerry Helen Hedges: \n\nHow you sharpen a needle; yes.....\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nDid you wet-stone or something?\n\nDr. Harold Hedges: \n\nExactly; Arkansas wet-stones from Hot Springs...its a little _______ like that and you’d sit there and you’d sharpen them. The big thing you had to do was look at it under a microscope ...you can get a little bit...sort of a tag or a little piece of metal at the very end of it and if you tried to stick that in somebody’s arm, it really hurts; so, you have to be sure that that little tag was gone. But you would sit there and sharp, sharp, sharp, and look at them.... (Laughing)....\n\nMerry Helen Hedges: \n\n(Laughing)....I guess that there wasn’t a lot of medical waste in those days as there is now.....\n\nDr. Harold Hedges: \n\nThe other thing was...you know, we are so used to getting these profiles; at that time, if you wanted a blood sugar you had a blood sugar by itself.....no lab table, no sodium, potassium, or anything else. They weren’t anything about getting a diagnostic profile period.\n\n \n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nYeah.....yeah....\n\nWhat about your second two years? \n\n\nDr. Harold Hedges: \n\nI loved them; the second two years.\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nWas there anything in particular that you just really fell for or thought, “Oh, this is great”? \n\n \n\nDr. Harold Hedges: \n\nUh....well, you know, the second two years is when you begin to feel like a doctor, kind of, because you’re talking to patients and you’re making some decisions; some decisions may not be right, but somebody straightened you out on it.....but, I enjoyed the last two years. The first two years were just hard. I don’t...... I can’t memorize stuff very well, but I can’t do it just enough to get by with it.\n\n \n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nAbout the time that you were finishing medical school.....that would’ve been in ’58 or ’59?\n\nDr. Harold Hedges: \n\n58.\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nThe University was trying to create....a lot of schools around the nation were creating a two year general practice residency. Do you remember that or was that on your radar at all?\n\nDr. Harold Hedges: \n\nIt certainly was; in fact, it was really more on my radar after we came back in 1963.\n\nMerry Helen Hedges: \n\nWe came back from the Navy.\n\n \n\nDr. Harold Hedges: \n\nWe came back from the Navy and John Tudor; do you remember John Tudor?\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nUh huh, I remember John Tudor.\n\nDr. Harold Hedges: \n\nJohn Tudor was recruited to come and build a family practice residency and so, I got involved with John in trying to help with whatever I can do.\n\nMerry Helen Hedges: \n\nLet me fill in a little gap there; Harold and his good friend, Jim Flag, started Little Rock Family Practice together in 1963. They were both in the Navy; we were all in the Navy together and you started talking about what you wanted to practice....you were kind of interested in obstetrics, I know, I remember ....but, you and Jim talked about if you went in to family practice where you would want to practice....so, you started looking all over the state for a place that could use two family physicians and.... \n\nDr. Harold Hedges: \n\nOne doctor finally told us, “You know, when you make this decision”.....the thing was Jim and I were thinking of where we were needed and that sort of thing; we were thinking about a smaller town...not a real small town, but as a matter of fact, we looked at Benton, Bryant, and a dozen different places...but the doctor wherever we were, I can’t even remember who told us....said, “What you need to do is see inside where you want to live and where you want to raise your children. You know, make a decision on things like that instead of where you are needed, because you are needed everywhere in Arkansas.” There wasn’t a place where we weren’t needed and so, she is from Little Rock, I’m from Little Rock, Jim is from Little Rock, James Flag’s wife was from Little Rock...Jane and I grew up next door to each other.... we decided, “let’s go to Little Rock.” We took a map and put all the family physicians or general practice physicians all around town on the map and the biggest void was Markham and University; that’s where we planned our...\n\n \n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nHuh....\n\nMerry Helen Hedges: \n\nIt was a dirt road then. \n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nA-Street....\n\nDr. Harold Hedges: \n\nA- Street was a dirt road.\n\nMerry Helen Hedges: \n\nYeah, University had been paved and all, but going out Markham...\n\n \n\nDr. Harold Hedges: \n\nBut, that is how we got started there.\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nLet’s talk about the Navy a little bit; how did you end up in the Navy?\n\nDr. Harold Hedges: \n\nThe Navy had a plan to entice doctors into joining the Navy; it was called “__________ 1995 Program” and they would pay your way as an ________...you are on active duty in the Navy going to medical school. So, I was a senior at the University of Arkansas, I was in the Navy on active duty, and I got paid an _______ salary; that allowed us to start our family. \n\nMerry Helen Hedges: \n\nI got to quit teaching.\n\n\n\nDr. Harold Hedges: \n\nYeah, she got to quit teaching; so after that, I....Jim and I both wanted to go to The School of Aviation Medicine; I wanted to learn how to fly....that was one of my reasons for doing it. We went to Pensacola after we graduated in 1958...\n\nMerry Helen Hedges: \n\n57...\n\nDr. Harold Hedges: \n\nWell, we got out of the Navy in the.......after your senior year, it was over; your active duty was over and you could either sign up for a rotating internship in the Navy or you could opt out for a year and then, come back in the Navy at the end of that. We opted out because we had...we started thinking about going into practice together at that time, we didn’t really know what we were going to do but that was something in the back of our mind. So, we went to St. Vincent’s and did our rotating internship at St. Vincent’s for a year and then, went back in the Navy to Pensacola, Florida to The School of Aviation Medicine, which was a six-month program. In the Air Force, it is a six-week program, but in the Navy it is a six month program and you do learn to fly. You actually go to......I thought that since I was a “doctor” our instructor, you know, would look at us with some “awe” for all the great things behind the doctor’s name....\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nThey didn’t...\n\nDr. Harold Hedges: \n\nThey didn’t treat us that way; no. That flight instructor had a broom handle.... (Laughing)...and every time you did something, because he was sitting behind us, he’d pop you on the head; but, you didn’t make that mistake but once...so...so anyway...\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nDid you find your armed services time productive?\n\nDr. Harold Hedges: \n\nOh yeah; listen.....\n\nMerry Helen Hedges: \n\nThat’s where he really discovered family medicine.\n\nDr. Harold Hedges: \n\nYeah...yeah, it was a delightful time; It was....\n\nMerry Helen Hedges: \n\nIt was two things.....you worked in a clinic on the naval base...\n\nDr. Harold Hedges: \n\nRight...\n\nMerry Helen Hedges: \n\nIt was a family practice clinic...essentially, it was ....but, he was also assigned to an aircraft carrier.\n\n \n\nDr. Harold Hedges: \n\nThe best laid plans of mice and men sometimes don’t pan out.....when you graduate from the School of Aviation Medicine, there was about 60 of us in the class, they give you 60 places and if you are the highest in the class, you get to pick any of these 60 places you want to go....if you’re the lowest, you get the last one that’s left over...I forget where it was, but somewhere in the middle was where we were and so...\n\nMerry Helen Hedges: \n\nYou and Jim...\n\nDr. Harold Hedges: \n\nJim and I, yeah; so....Jim was six months ahead of us in the class as he had opted to stay and go to Jacksonville, Florida; he was with anti-submarine group for the three years that he was in the Navy. We graduated six months later and I opted for an aircraft carrier; mostly because we’d go to Europe and in those days and times, wives could come over and we could travel Europe together a little bit when we’d port. We ever took caravans on the carrier that we unloaded once we got to Europe and the caravans would go from port to port carrying the wives. So, it was a sick deal. \n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nYeah...\n\nDr. Harold Hedges: \n\nWe were all set up to do that and John, our second son to be born...when he was 6 or 8 years old, she was going to come to Europe...\n\n \n\nMerry Helen Hedges: \n\nNo, it was.....we already had two children when you went......\n\nDr. Harold Hedges: \n\nThat’s right...that’s right...\n\nMerry Helen Hedges: \n\nJohn...in fact, you came......you were just in the Navy in Pensacola when John was born and you came; your commanding officer flew you up here to see John.\n\nDr. Harold Hedges\n\n(Laughing)....That’s right.....that’s right.... \n\nMerry Helen Hedges: \n\nBut right after that....when you left on the carrier, I was pregnant with our third one and so.......I couldn’t come.\n\nDr. Harold Hedges: \n\nBut we got off track because our sister carrier caught fire over in the Mediterranean, the Roosevelt, and so, we had to leave six months early. Instead of having him, Danny, and our mothers were going to come down and take care of the three children while we toured Europe for a while....but when the Roosevelt caught fire within about a two week period, we had to load up and go replace the Roosevelt; so, the best laid plans of that didn’t pan out.\n\n \n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nSo where did you live here then?\n\nMerry Helen Hedges: \n\nNo, I stayed in Jacksonville ....\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nOh, you stayed in Jacksonville....\n\nMerry Helen Hedges: \n\nYeah...\n\nDr. Harold Hedges: \n\nShe was a trooper; she held a family together.\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nRight....\n\nMerry Helen Hedges: \n\n(Laughing)...Well....yeah....\n\n\nDr. Harold Hedges: \n\nAt the time....she...\n\nMerry Helen Hedges: \n\nOur mothers would call...our mothers were best friends here in Little Rock, Harold’s mother and my mother, and they’d call and say, “Merry Helen, you bring those babies and come to Little Rock” and I’d say, “Nuh uh, I’m staying right here.” The family.....the Navy wives whose husbands were on the carrier, ___________, there was quite a community of taking care of each other and I felt perfectly in charge of my life with two little babies and pregnant with the third.\n\n \n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nI don’t get the impression that either one of you have ever lacked confidence.\n\nDr. Harold Hedges: \n\nConfidence....?\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nYeah; that you are confident in that you can do what you need to do when you need to do it; is that right?\n\nMerry Helen Hedges: \n\nYes, I believe that’s so.\n\nDr. Harold Hedges: \n\nYeah...yeah....yeah..\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\n(Laughing).... I get that impression, but that’s just me.....\n\nYou were talking about being exposed to different spiritual faiths; this is that same kind of thing..... \n\nMerry Helen Hedges: \n\nYes.\n\nDr. Harold Hedges: \n\nYeah, that’s what I’m...\n\nMerry Helen Hedges: \n\nNo, he’s talking about earlier when I was going to elementary and junior high....\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nSure; sure....it’s the same thing....the same kind of thing....\n\nMerry Helen Hedges: \n\nThat’s right, I’ve ...you know, I had an opportunity not long ago.; several years ago, I went to a workshop and at that time, it dawned on me that every life changing decision I ever made ...I made for myself; nobody else made it for me....even asking him to marry me. (Laughing)...\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nRight.....again, confidence is not a problem..... (Laughing)....\n\nIn all young marriages, going to medical school, going to college....was there any crises during this period of time? It can be health crises, family crises (mom, dad, brothers, sisters), financial crises, social crises.... \n\n \n\nDr. Harold Hedges: \n\nWell, my father had a stroke at age 55; he had left...he was living in Louisville, Kentucky at the time and he was overweight, smoked cigars, had a toddy every night.....he wasn’t an alcoholic by any matter or means, but he didn’t take care of himself. He was not an exercise person. They moved back to Little Rock to be close to me and my brothers at the time. Right as we came back from the Navy, her father died; the same year, 1963.\n\nMerry Helen Hedges: \n\nMy father died...\n\nDr. Harold Hedges: \n\nYeah, by some strange jaundice reaction to something; I think it was a reaction to __________.\n\nHow old of a man was he?\n\nWell, it’s hard to know because he didn’t have really a birth certificate; but, he was 65....\n\n \n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nThat’s what was on the death certificate?\n\nMerry Helen Hedges: \n\nYeah, so.....but, he had been quite a world traveler...laterally around the world.... and in his travels, he was a member of parlamode...a commission or something called “A World Without Hunger”....he was in the fertilizer business plant food business. He traveled all these countries talking about.... today, I mean, fertilizer is not as acceptable ; organic is better...but back in those days fertilizer; my daddy really thought fertilizer would save the world from hunger and so, that is what he did....he traveled. During all that time traveling, he had a hard time sleeping and they gave him pills to help him sleep; then in the years following, he began to get sick.\n\n \n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nWere your kids in pretty good health during this period of time, their young years, or did they have a lot of significant health problems?\n\nMerry Helen Hedges: \n\nNo; well, they had mumps, measles, and chicken pox; you know which now a day’s children don’t have.\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nRight...\n\nMerry Helen Hedges: \n\nThey had it when Harold was in the Navy and so, he wasn’t home.... I’m talking about Hal and John having measles and chicken pox....\n\nDr. Harold Hedges: \n\nOh...\n\nMerry Helen Hedges: \n\nWhile you were in the Mediterranean in an aircraft carrier.\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nSo you came back after three years in the Navy and you and Dr. Flag started the Little Rock Family Practice.....what year was that? \n\n\n\nDr. Harold Hedges: \n\n‘63; a funny thing happened while I was in the Navy...I was over in Europe and we had a sailor that went kind of berserk and he started cutting wires on airplanes, which is not a good thing to do; well, they caught this guy and they put him in the brig. I’m standing with our air boss in the carrier, the executive off the carrier... \n\nMerry Helen Hedges: \n\nYou were in the North Sea...\n\nDr. Harold Hedges: \n\nYeah, we were in the North Sea and they were discussing about how to get this guy off the ship and get him away from the ship... well, I was standing beside them and said, “Look, I’ve got a straight jacket and I’d be glad to put him in a strait jacket and then, I’ll fly off with him in the mail plane when the mail plane comes in the next day or so ....... So....\n\n \n\nMerry Helen Hedges: \n\nTo England.....\n\nDr. Harold Hedges: \n\nYeah to England; we’d get him and take him back to England.....they said, “Well, you probably won’t be able to get back on the ship until we get to General”....which was going to be nine days....I said, “I’ve been out here from a month to 6 weeks and I’m ready to be off the ship; so that won’t bother me at all.”....... (Laughing)....so, we put the guy in the strait jacket and we started out from England to London, which is a 600 mile trip; about 300 miles into the trip, the plane just fills up with smoke. It was an electrical problem and so, they just cut off everything electric...we didn’t have any flame or anything like that; it was just smoke. But, we flew 300 miles about 50 ft off the water...all that time.....the pilot called back/radioed back and asked, “what are you going to do with him if we have to ditch?” and I said, “After we get in the water, I will unsnap him; but I’m not going to unsnap him here in this airplane and have him go berserk”....I’m the only one in the airplane with him and the pilot. So, we went into London and I had received a letter from her parents that...they were on this around the world trip and they were going to be in London at the same time I was going to be in London. The same day that we landed with his guy, I went out to the airport in London and they stepped off the airplane and almost dropped dead because here I was at the bottom of the plane. So, I got to stay with them for three days and then, I flew to Paris for three days, and then, I flew to Rome for three days......I’m running out of money in Rome and I happened to run into...it was 103 and I didn’t speak anything but English and so, I found a place to stay that cost 50 cents..... (Laughing)...50 cents a night. So, I’m at this place and I decided to go and try to find something for dinner; I’m crossing the Boulevard, it was a tunnel underneath the street so you don’t get more proxy, and while I’m in this tunnel, I hear these people speaking...English. So, I just introduced myself to them and it was a group from New England and they were on a tour. They had like a 60-passenger bus, but they only had about 40 people on it. So, I got to be friends with the tour guide and I told him where I was staying and what I was doing and he said, “We’ve had 4-5 \n\npeople cancel out at the last minute. We’ve got places to stay, we’ve got the bus ride, meals to eat; why don’t you just join us here in Rome?” They were going to General when they left and they‘d drop me off in General in 4 or 5 days; so, I said, “That’s a deal” and I joined the tour. While I was in Rome; in fact..the first night, I spent the night in my 50 cent room and the next morning, I was down at the desk and somebody was checking out speaking broken English; he had a pass to get in with.....to see the Pope; the Audience with the Pope....gosh, he was ...he just gave this to the bellhop there and said, “If anybody wants this, they can go to the Audience with the Pope.” I said, “I’d like to have it” and so, I got this thing to go see the Pope.\n\n \n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nAbout how old were you at this point?\n\nDr. Harold Hedges: \n\nUhhhh....uhhhh.....\n\nMerry Helen Hedges: \n\nWell, you had started medical school in...\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nAbout 26 or 27?\n\nDr. Harold Hedges: \n\nYeah....yeah and so, I’m thinking that me and the Pope, you know, are going to get to speak with each other.....(Laughing)...when you see....when you have an Audience with the Pope, it’s.... you’re going to be there with about 2,000 other people, but I did get in. I’m sitting on the aisle right here and there was a whole line of folks to my right; I’m sitting on the aisle where the Pope was coming down and when the Pope comes down, everybody had their rosaries or something that they are swinging around so that they can touch the Pope. I’m the low man on the totem pole here and I mean everybody was trying to climb over and get on top of .....just to be able to touch the Pope or something. But anyway, I lived through the Audience with the Pope and it was that night that I found my English speaking folks and traveled with them; They dropped me off at General and I had 25 cents left in my pocket when I got back on the ship...(Laughing).... \n\n \n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nSo when you got through with the Navy, you came back to Little Rock and set up the practice; do you remember anything about setting up the Practice? Did it cost a lot of money to set it up?\n\nDr. Harold Hedges: \n\nNo, back to ....this helped me when I found out I wanted to go to family Practice. I had finished that one cruse, the six month cruse, and it was a year later and there was....the ship was getting ready to go back on its next cruse, every six months, they’d trade out... and there was a doctor there. When I came back, I went to work in the dispensary at the airbase; I go wherever the air group goes and the air group was back at the base for training and all that. So, I’m working in the dispensary and there was a Captain, Nick Nawman, the lead man who he ended up being an Admiral and he was a physician....he was given the task to set up a general practice at the base, inside the base; they had not had that and it was a Master Jet base. So, he turned to me and said, “I want you to set up a family practice, or general practice, here” and so, I...for that final year that I was in the Navy, I set up and was running a family practice. \n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nThat’s neat....\n\nDr. Harold Hedges: \n\nAnd I felt really comfortable in family practice.....so, making that transition from Navy family practice to a new family practice in Little Rock was pretty easy for me because I knew pretty much what needed to happen. So, you remember Stover’s Medical Supplies?\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nYeah sure...\n\nDr. Harold Hedges: \n\nWhen Jim and I decided to settle in Little Rock, we found a place right there...remember where Little Diagnostic Clinic was; initially at the bottom of...not University, but ...right down from the junior high school there. We were right at the bottom of the hill....yeah, it was University...\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nYeah, it was University.....across the street from where ya’ll ________.\n\nDr. Harold Hedges: \n\nYeah; we picked that site and Little Rock Diagnostic Clinic went up; that’s where the Little Rock Diagnostic first started.....when Jim Radtke, or Jim.......what was his name....George, the internist...these names leave me; but anyway, there was about 5 of them that started the Little Rock Diagnostic.\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nThere was a Harper......because, I remember him.\n\nDr. Harold Hedges: \n\nWhat was George’s last name; he ended up doing something for Blue Cross Blue Shield....I was thinking that some of that might come in... Anyway, we were at the bottom of University and and our first office was like 600 square feet....600 square feet for two of us. We went into.....when we started our practice, Merry Helen and Jane was our nurse and receptionist.....that lasted about a week... (Laughing)...then, we hired a young woman who was a secretary to some doctor, but she could write letters, correspondence and a whole lot of stuff that you just don’t know anything about in medical school.\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nRight...\n\nDr. Harold Hedges: \n\nSo, Lillian Fanny; she weighted about 300 lbs, but she did know her stuff and she was our receptionist. We had one nurse between the two of us and we had a lab and x-ray person; that was pretty much all we started with. We charged $5.00 for an office call and $10.00 for a house call and we made a lot of house calls.\n\n \n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nThis was right about the time that Medicare came along.\n\nDr. Harold Hedges: \n\nMedicare was raising its head about then.\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nYeah, right about the same time.\n\nDr. Harold Hedges: \n\nWhen we opened our practice, we called the doctor’s exchange and told them that we’d take any call from anybody at any time/24 hours a day; so, we ended up treating a number of alcoholics and some of the ladies of the evening, which was interesting because it was a higher class ladies of the evening that I was used to hearing about. Never, not one time, did any of them try to take out trade for sex; I mean, they paid in cash. Several of them just got to be our patients and they would come for their pap smears and all this until they moved on or something happened; I don’t know what happened to them. But that was an interesting start to our practice right there.\n\n \n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nDid it take long for y’all to get busy?\n\nDr. Harold Hedges: \n\nNo, it didn’t; one of the things that happened and got us into treating more men...we were doing well with kids and with the women, but hardly any men....do you remember Wiley Cabin?\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nUh huh...\n\nDr. Harold Hedges: \n\nWiley Cabin, the catering service, had a great big picnic in Little Rock and I don’t know if it was a viral infection, salmonella, or whatever it was as we weren’t doing any cultures at that point....but it just went all through this big mass of people and the poor men didn’t have anybody to go to. They didn’t have a pediatrician, they didn’t have an obstetrician, and so they came to poor little ole _____ and we ended up with a number of patients there. About the same time in 1963 or ’64, St. Vincent’s did not match any interns and at the time, the interns were taking care of the emergency room and being the floor doctors. So, they came to us and asked Jim and I to put together a group that would cover the emergency room and the floors at night; so, John, Samuel, George Holiteck, Jim Black, and one other...we divided up the week and weekends. We would finish Friday and every fifth weekend, we’d go to the emergency room at 5 o’clock and work Friday night, all day Saturday and Saturday night, all day Sunday and Sunday night and then, we’d go back to the office at 8 o’clock on Monday morning. Now, you know, we weren’t near as busy as the emergency rooms are now, but it was...you know...that was a learning experience. I used to....Merry Helen and the kids used to come up and have dinner with me, because we were gone that whole weekend and really had no business going back to work Monday morning because we were kind of sacked out.\n\n \n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nBut you were still in your late 20s and early 30s.... (Laughing).....you could do anything. \n\nDr. Harold Hedges: \n\nRight...right....right...\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nEventually, y’all started adding on partners....\n\nDr. Harold Hedges: \n\nYeah, the first partner we had was Billy Wade; William Wade and he had just finished a stead in public health down in New Orleans. He grew up in Little Rock and was of small stature; the patients used to call him “Little Billy Wade”..... (Laughing)....he will never live that down. So, little Billy Wade and his wife wasn’t much....they were about the same size....5’1 or 5’2 or something like that...Billy Wade shows up in a full length mink coat and in a bright yellow Cadillac convertible....(laughing)....so, he was the first one to joined us and .... \n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nAt some point during that time frame, his wife went to work for the Arkansas Academy of General Practice; it was either right then or right after that. \n\nDr. Harold Hedges: \n\nYeah....\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nI believe that she was the first Executive Secretary before Alta Good and then, of course before Carla. \n\nDr. Harold Hedges: \n\nYeah...yeah....Alta Good and then, Carla....yeah, she did.\n\nMerry Helen Hedges: \n\nI don’t remember her name.\n\nDr. Harold Hedges: \n\nWell....Uh....\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nWanda...\n\nMerry Helen Hedges: \n\nWanda.\n\nDr. Harold Hedges: \n\nWanda; you’re right.\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nWanda Wade; the only reason I know this is because I’m....because of this history that I’m working on, I’m looking at the archives all the time. I looked at the archives before I came to about when you were President of the organization. That’s part of what I’m doing....Wade Wade, Alta Goode, and then Carla...I think there may have been another lady in there for a brief time. \n\nDo you remember when you started getting involved with the organization?\n\nDr. Harold Hedges: \n\nWell, Alta Good was there; she was the one that was there. It was....I got involved early on after we came back in the practice; probably within a couple of years anyway. At one point, I was President of the group.\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nIn ’83 or ’84...\n\nDr. Harold Hedges: \n\nYeah...somewhere along in there.\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nI’ve got all these listed down here somewhere.....you were ’86 and ’87.\n\nDr. Harold Hedges: \n\nYeah....’86 and ’87....I had to make a decision after my ...after a year...well, let’s see...right after that year, I got on the program committee for the American Academy of Family Physicians; the big..... \n\nMerry Helen Hedges: \n\nThe National...\n\nDr. Harold Hedges: \n\nYeah, the National group and so, I spent three years on that and then, I was beginning to teach. I enjoyed teaching more than committee work and so, I opted not to go on and go through the politics of the Academy. Then, I started teaching for the Academy; I taught courses in algae and asthma for 12 years.\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nMy impression is that most people who got involved with the academy after a couple of years, they became vice president or secretary and then, they became President; then they stuck around for three, four, or five more years. Most people’s tenure being actively involved in the political element of it was about 10 years; is that about.....I mean that is what it looked like.\n\nDr. Harold Hedges: \n\nThat’s probably right; I can think of Shot for one. Shot was active for a long time. Jim...\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nWebber...\n\nDr. Harold Hedges: \n\nWebber was active for....\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nTim Honeycutt.\n\nDr. Harold Hedges: \n\nYeah, Tom Honeycutt...\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nDid you have a lot of exposure or work with Tim Honeycutt much?\n\nDr. Harold Hedges: \n\nI didn’t work with him, but I had a lot of exposure to him; you can’t help but have exposure to Tom Honeycutt.\n\n(All laughing)...\n\nHe was _________; so yeah, I had a lot of....I liked Tom.\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nWas it fair to say that he was confident as well?\n\nDr. Harold Hedges: \n\nOh yes, he was quite confident...he was....absolutely....\n\n(All laughing)...\n\nMerry Helen Hedges: \n\nYeah.\n\nDr. Harold Hedges: He was a character.\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nYou brought up the name John Tudor; John was head of the program when I was in the Family Practice residency.\n\nDr. Harold Hedges: \n\nOk.\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nHe was in there and he had been there for a year or two. I was in the very second year of the residency. Mike Moody was in the year before me....Mike and Jim Bozeman...and then, I was in that second year. What do you remember about John Tudor?\n\nDr. Harold Hedges: \n\nWell, John and I got along real well. I was kind of a sounding board for women I would help them however I could. I remember he wanted...first of all, I didn’t want the family practice group to be other there tied into the medical school. I wanted that as far apart as we could get. I wanted the family practice thing to look like a family practice. \n\nMerry Helen Hedges: \n\nHe’s talking about the residency.\n\nDr. Harold Hedges: \n\nThe residency, yeah; I wanted an office out in town....be at a house or be at whatever, but not tied too closely to.... but that was several years...so, you were at St. Vincent’s when you were.....\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nI was at Baptist; no, I was at the nurse’s building for clinic.\n\nDr. Harold Hedges: \n\nAt St. Vincent’s, yeah...\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nAt St. Vincent’s; but, I was basically house staff for my two years over at Baptist.\n\nDr. Harold Hedges: \n\nOk, alright; this was a little later when they were deciding about where they were going to put the family practice deal and it ended up being right over there where I didn’t want it to be. I knew it wouldn’t look like or act like a family practice if they, the University, had its fingers on it all the time. At one point, John wanted an x-ray machine for the group and there was a physician who was going out of practice who had a portable x-ray machine that I got for them. We were ready to put it in and with all the dippings of things that we had to do to get x-rays at the time...it had to be signed off by the radiology department; well, the radiology department x’ed it because they didn’t want their radiology students to read x-rays that weren’t just top notch...because this was; in fact, we had an almost identical machine in our office and we’d do long-bones and chest x-rays...that was 99% of all we were going to do with that and that was it. Anyway, they x’ed it and it was 10 years before the family practice program got an x-ray machine.\n\n \n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nNow, you are more than welcome not to answer this question...this is one of those questions that you can say, “Next question”......it looks like and from what my knowledge base is...the medical center was fairly well dominated by surgical sub-specialties and the people who supported the surgical sub-specialties. They didn’t necessarily or weren’t invested in seeing the family practice residency survive. \n\nDr. Harold Hedges: \n\nAb-so-lute-ly...\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nOk, that was always my...that has always been my impression. Then, they appeared to have injected controversy where there wasn’t necessarily any controversy needed.\n\nDr. Harold Hedges: \n\nYeah and who got in the middle of all that was someone who came after John Tudor, our friend...\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nGoss...Ken Goss\n\nDr. Harold Hedges: \n\nKen Goss; yeah, he fought a lot of battles with that....\n\n \n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nThere was a bit of controversy; at least the memory I have.....again this is one of those questions that you don’t have to answer if you don’t want to...a lot of controversy...there was a bit of controversy about John Tudor himself and his ability to run the program. For a couple of years, it varied where Tom Bruce was going to be the head of the program or Ben Salzmann was going to be the head of the program and then all the sudden, John leaves and goes to Utah.....I think. Do you have any awareness of what happened during that process?\n\nDr. Harold Hedges: \n\nNot really; I did know of the ups and downs and the politics about it, but I was not out in the middle of all that. What was John’s wife’s name?\n\nMerry Helen Hedges: \n\nI don’t remember.\n\nDr. Harold Hedges: \n\nAnyway, that’s not important.\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nDid....other issues; now, I’d just like for you to back up just a little bit and let’s take a little more broad view....I mean, we know what was going on, I know what was going on with family practice, you do and most everybody....privileges were a big deal and hospitals were beginning, particularly after the injection of Medicare and Medicaid money and the large insurance companies.....privileges began to being constricted for family practice. Where there any other major issues in that time frame that would’ve dominated your years on the board or nurse practitioners, the advent of nurse practitioners, and how may nurse practitioners you could cover...those kinds of things.....? \n\nDr. Harold Hedges: \n\nThe nurse practitioner program came along not long after I was out of the politics part of that. Jim and I both delivered babies for a while....\n\nMerry Helen Hedges: \n\nWhen you first went into practice...\n\nDr. Harold Hedges: \n\nWhen we first went into practice....but we quit not because of the politics or they took our privileges way, we quit because we were working in the emergency room and several times we got caught with a patient of ours who’d be in labor and we had to be in the emergency room and it just didn’t work out; so, we knew we had to stop one of them and we stopped.....\n\nMerry Helen Hedges: \n\nBut that wasn’t at UAMS that was at St.Vincent’s.\n\nDr. Harold Hedges: \n\nIt was at St. Vincent’s; yeah...\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nYeah; but most of this privilege business had to do with private hospitals and public hospitals, right? I think it very interesting that you comment like that; I think I told you that I interviewed Shot Rodgers two days ago and we were talking about the fact that when he went into practice in the late ‘60s, he continued to deliver babies for about 2 or 3 years; Billy Riley did, Julian Foster did, and I don’t know if....for sure those guys continued to deliver babies and then all of the sudden one day, everybody just said, “This is too much” and it was about that same time that you were talking about...it was about that same time. \n\nDr. Harold Hedges: \n\nWell, the thing about that...most, I don’t know how many of them, but a goodly number of women that we were delivering still owed for another baby they had that somebody else delivered and you know, they couldn’t go back to that doctor because they couldn’t pay and we were charging $50.00 for a delivery....(Laughing)....that’s what it was. One interested little side is about 3-4 years ago, one day a young man showed up at the back door here and he was working for the paper....\n\nMerry Helen Hedges: \n\nThe Democrat Gazette.\n\nDr. Harold Hedges: \n\nThe Democrat-Gazette; we’d dropped our thing and he wanted us to get signed back on and he said, “Are you Dr. Harold Hedges?” and I said, “Yes” and he said, “Well, you know, I’m adopted and you’re name is on my birth certificate.” Right off the bat, I knew exactly the situation; at St. Vincent’s, we were delivering the Florence Crittenden babies. I said, “Yes, I know exactly”.....he was looking for information about his mother and I said, “You know, I don’t have any kind of information about that; but, I know that your mother was living at the Florence Crittenden Home in Little Rock and I delivered you when you came into this world.” I gave him what information that I had about where he might go look and he did finally find her; she was living in Oklahoma or something like that, but that was an interesting little side.\n\n \n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nIn the ‘40s, ’50s, and really up into the early ‘60s, most family physicians.... I’m not using these words or I’m not equating these completely....but many times country doctors and family physicians, even though they are and can be two different things and they are not mutually exclusive, was matterly used one or two times; you and Jim Flagg. You started a practice and stayed in practice with yourselves together most of your professional career. Somewhere along the ‘60s, groups....whether it was Little Rock or whether it was Augusta....began to become the rule and not the exception; where it wasn’t just one or two guys, it would be one, two, three, or four guys and then, the corporatization of American Medicine occurred and so, the big hospitals started buying up practices and those kinds of \n\nthings. Do you remember any of that in terms of how it had an impact on your practice and why you think that happened? \n\nDr. Harold Hedges: \n\nUh, I think one of the reasons it happened is a single doctor was tired of taking call every night and being on call every weekend and every night. But because we went through the thing about having Jim and I and then, Jim, I and Billy Wade and then, Jim, I, Billy Wade, and Bob ______; our life got better and better all along and now, we were at ever fourth weekend and I think that was one of the driver things for doctors getting together as well as you can save money. You take two doctors here and here and put them together in one office or one place, you can save money by doing that...\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nRight...\n\nDr. Harold Hedges: \n\nAnd I think that was another....\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nWhat about the cost of technology: x-ray equipment, computers, laboratory equipment, uh.....?\n\nDr. Harold Hedges: \n\nIt just got way out of hand for family physicians. When we opened our practice, the reason I asked about Stover’s is we had a young man come out from Stover’s and Jim and I had a whole list of things that we just knew that we had to have to start a practice.... he took that list and said,”Let me just do this; this is a list I’ll work from and I’m going to “x” through the stuff that you don’t need today, tomorrow, or next week. We are going to get the basic stuff and anytime you need anything, give me a call and you’ll have it within the hour.” I said, “Well, that’s a good deal” and he put an “x” through 3/4s of the stuff we had on that list. \n\n(Laughing)\n\nAnd I doubt that we got half of what was left on that paper; so....\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nWhen I started the practice that I built in ‘78 or ’79, I went to Stover’s...I think it was still Stover’s at that time and he said, “Sam, there is a guy up in Heber Springs that is going out of practice; go talk to him”......it was the same kind of deal. He said, “There is easier ways to skinning this cat.” (Laughing)....\n\nDr. Harold Hedges: \n\nAnd we got some stuff from Earl; we had a fellow in our class that was killed in a car wreck...Earl...Earl...Earl....he was killed in a car accident not long after we started practice and we got...that’s where Carol Ann came from.....Earl Pearson. His nurse came to us and then, we got some equipment from him.......yeah...\n\n \n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nDid you enjoy the practice of medicine?\n\nDr. Harold Hedges: \n\nI love it.\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nNow, I did notice that you didn’t just say that in the past tense; you said, “I love it.” \n\nDr. Harold Hedges: \n\nI do; I still love it.\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nOk; yeah...\n\nDr. Harold Hedges: \n\nYou know, I was practicing up until last February when the Covid..... because, I had been volunteering over at the East End Clinic and in the back of my mind, I still think I may go back over there. I was only going to go over there like once a week or so, but....\n\nMerry Helen Hedges: \n\nSeveral years, you went to St. Francis House to the St. Vincent’s clinic there too.\n\nDr. Harold Hedges: \n\nSt. Vincent’s was running three clinics and at one time, I was going to those three clinics.\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nNow, you have always been....you and your clinic has always been identified, in the same way that Shot and Bill Riley have been identified at Baptist, you guys have been identified with St. Vincent’s.\n\nDr. Harold Hedges: \n\nSt. Vincent’s....\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nIn the early ‘70s, or late ‘60s, St. Vincent’s started the East End Clinic....\n\nDr. Harold Hedges: \n\nUh huh....\n\n \n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nRoundtree.....was it Paul Roundtree who set that up over there?\n\nDr. Harold Hedges: \n\nPaul Roundtree. \n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nWere you involved in that?\n\nDr. Harold Hedges: \n\nYeah, I was even before that; the first East End Clinic we had over there was in some kind of governmental offices and the secretaries would take everything off their desks before they left that afternoon and their desks were our examining tables. There was a young....I think it was a surgeon.....I can’t remember his name, but there was a surgeon in Little Rock and his son was a sophomore and he was...\n\nMerry Helen Hedges: \n\nIn medical school?\n\nDr. Harold Hedges: \n\nYeah in medical school...\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nCooper?\n\nDr. Harold Hedges: \n\nCooper....yeah....\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nYeah, I know who you’re talking about; I was there too. I was one of the young kids behind him.\n\nDr. Harold Hedges: \n\nOk ....well...\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nRichard Cooper....\n\nDr. Harold Hedges: \n\nYeah, he wanted to....he needed somebody to write prescriptions because he didn’t do that and so, that is I what Jim and I did.....we’d go over there and that was the first kind of East End Clinic.\n\n \n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nYeah, you and I may well have met during that period of time.\n\nDr. Harold Hedges: \n\nProbably...\n\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nBecause, I was kind of tagging along with those people....\n\nDr. Harold Hedges: \n\nYeah....\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nAnd I was also involved in a group that Jasperman Phil and Dale Callon created over at the Second Baptist Church over in College Station; the same time frame. But anyway, that is just kind of interesting and I would I suspect that you may have signed off on something that I wrote.\n\nDr. Harold Hedges: \n\nPossibly.....I have been off and on with that volunteer program over there for years, and years, and years, and also at Aldersgate.\n\n \n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nThe daycare....\n\nDr. Harold Hedges: \n\nYeah....yeah....\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nTell me about...there have just been dramatic changes, Tofflerian dramatic changes, in technology in the last 30 years....more since 1990, but just dramatic changes: computerization, electronic medical records, telemedicine....talk about your experiences with that a little bit.\n\nDr. Harold Hedges: \n\nYeah; oh yeah... Well, it certainly....all this....just change almost every day; you know, it not every year, there is something new all along. When the computer entered the picture, I didn’t much like it at first. There are bits and pieces of it that I don’t like because it separates you from the patient; there is no doubt about it. I have a picture in my mind that I ran into at one of the annual meetings of the American Academy of Family Physicians, a pretty big picture, and it is a picture of a doctor and his computer, the patient sitting over here, and then, there is a child in the room. That child makes a statement, “The doctor doesn’t even look at you anymore” and that is what is going on; that is what it’s done. It certainly...I do like the fact that you can do better records, but I don’t like that fact that you canned records; you can print out a whole physical and a whole review of systems that I know damn good and well that you didn’t do.......\n\n \n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nRight.\n\nDr. Harold Hedges: \n\nAnd some of those specialists, we....you know, we get 5-6 pages of the last visit from somebody and it’s just reams and reams of canned histories and physicals; I just don’t like that. I did like; I was at the academy at one ...one of the things, my nurses used to be scared to death when I went out of town; especially when I went to an academy meeting because they knew when I get back, I’d have a new idea. (Laughing)....I was...Jim Flagg was our grounded person in our practice and I was the one out there flipping around doing this that and the other.....but, we had a great relationship.\n\n \n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nNow, you speak about Jim Flagg in the past tense....\n\nDr. Harold Hedges: \n\nYeah...\n\nMerry Helen Hedges: \n\nHe died.\n\nDr. Harold Hedges: \n\nHe died some years ago.\n\n \n\nMerry Helen Hedges: \n\nMaybe 10 years ago...\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nWhat did he die of?\n\nDr. Harold Hedges: \n\nHe had really bad dementia. The last 4-5 years, he was a patient in _________ Village and totally, totally, totally gone. I’d go up and see him a couple of times a month his whole life, but he didn’t know who I was or pay any attention to it.\n\n \n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nNow admittingly, I heard what you said about you’re not necessarily retired, but you’re almost retired. At what point in your life did you start thinking about the possibility of retiring?\n\nDr. Harold Hedges: \n\nProbably around 63 or 64 or maybe even a little bit before that; but the closer I got to 65...\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nAnd you’re 87 now?\n\nDr. Harold Hedges: \n\nI’m in my 87th year; I’ll be 87.....but, you know, I realized that I just wasn’t ready to retire and it wasn’t because I didn’t have anything to do, because I will fill up the space; that is not the problem. I just certainly love family practice and I didn’t want to give up the patients; I just didn’t want to give up doing what I was doing and so, I made it until I was ...I guess, I was 82....\n\nMerry Helen Hedges: \n\nI want to say 82.\n\nDr. Harold Hedges: \n\n82 or 83 when I left practice over there, but....\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nWhat prompted the move? \n\nDr. Harold Hedges: \n\nUh....when we went from 9 to 10.\n\nMerry Helen Hedges: \n\nDoctors?\n\nDr. Harold Hedges: \n\nNo; no, it was a billing.....the billing thing that came..... I did pretty good learning all the computers....all the way up through 9, but 10 was on the horizon and that was one of the reasons. I don’t know if I had or I can’t tell you a specific reason that I decided to retire....\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nHad you cut down the number of patients that you saw every day?\n\nDr. Harold Hedges: \n\nUh....for about 3-4 years, ____ and I got together and we said, “Let’s work half time” and so, we split up the week; we worked half time and the way we did it....I would work Thursday, Friday and then, Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday....that block and then, he’d come in and so, we were there every week. Some weeks, we were there two days and some weeks, we were there three days and that worked really good and it allowed me to work the two free clinics that I was going to and to also do other things. Jim and I....one of the wisest things and I have never been able to convince doctor’s that this was a good thing to do...but, we would sit in the office on day one or day two and we’d decide how many days we wanted to work. At that time, most all the tennis players were working 4 days a week and taking Wednesday off and the golfers were working four days a week and they were taking Thursday off...I wasn’t playing tennis and I wasn’t golfing, so I said, “let’s take a four day week and you take Wednesday off and I’ll take Thursday off.... so, you can play tennis.” Then other thing, we didn’t want to really sign up for five days a week every week for the rest of our life and so, we worked that four days a week. Every new partner that we had who would come in, I would suggest to them, “You know, if you start working five days a week, you will work five days a week your whole life because you are going to begin to live on the salary you make for five days a week. So, if you want to have any time with your family work four days a week.” That has allowed Merry Helen and I to do things like getting in the cattle business; we were cattle barons for a while.\n\nMerry Helen Hedges: \n\nDon’t include me in that... (Laughing).... \n\nDr. Harold Hedges: \n\nOh…\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nI was going to get to that, but this is a good ...you obviously got involved in the Orvis shop and you got involved in raising cattle....what kind of experience was that?\n\nDr. Harold Hedges: \n\nIt was fun for me and for our kids.\n\nMerry Helen Hedges: \n\nIt was...yeah, it was a marvelous experience for our sons; but the thing....you had just...we were still living on borrowed money from when you set up your practice and you thought, “We need a farm”. So, we lucked into a piece of land in Cabot and so, we had “the farm.”\n\nDr. Harold Hedges: \n\nWe were...what we were doing; we both ...because I had grown up in the country and I had experience with it, I kind of wanted some kind of experience outside from just the city for the kids. So, we were looking at....on Saturdays, to see if there was anything in the want ads that might be worth while looking at...\n\nMerry Helen Hedges: \n\nThat wasn’t too far from home.\n\nDr. Harold Hedges: \n\nYeah, that wasn’t too far from home and so, I’m looking at the paper one day and there was this thing in Cabot that said something like “324 acres for $23,000- and- some-odd dollars” and I said, “My gosh, look at the acreage that is for $23,000; it must be under water and on the side of a hill.” But, we decided to drive out there; we drove out there and this old farmer with his big ole farm hat and overalls was driving a bull dozer with a disc or something behind, I forgot, but he stopped and came over to us and his name was Lile Shirley. Bo Shirely from Cabot was his nephew who is a doctor up there; but, Lile came over and he took at look at our kids and said, “Doctor, you need to buy this place; them boys need to know something about the country” and I said, “Lile, we’re still living on borrowed money and I can’t really afford to do this. We are just kind of looking around” and he said, “No, you really need to buy this place.” Some people had been out to look at it before we got there and they had gone to get horses to ride over this 300-and-some-odd acres and he said, “I want you to give me a check for $5.00” so, I gave him a check for $5.00 and when these folks came back, he took out this check and said, “Sorry fellers”...he didn’t want to sell it to them because their idea was to bust it up and he raised this check and said, ”Somebody’s already come out and gave me a down payment on this place.” So, I went home and I was still flying at the time and I got a plane and fly over the land.....if you...where the 4-lane highway ended at ...what is the next county?\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nWhite County? \n\nDr. Harold Hedges: \n\nWhatever the...\n\nMerry Helen Hedges: \n\nWe went through Jacksonville...\n\nDr. Harold Hedges: \n\nWe went through Jacksonville and the 4-lane highway stopped on the other side of the Air Base and at that point, it was the old 65 or 64 that goes to St. Louis.....I flew back and forth over that and I knew that at some time they were going to have to make a 4-lane highway up through there and there was no way that they could start at that county line and make a 4-lane highway \n\nwithout going through the middle of that property.....on the basis of that, we borrowed the money, we bought that, and six months later, I went out there one day and there were red flags right through the middle of it where a 4-lane highway was going to be. So, we got most of our money back...\n\n \n\nMerry Helen Hedges: \n\nBut, our kids did go out there every weekend; we’d go to the farm.\n\nDr. Harold Hedges: \n\nYeah and every Thursday for gosh...20-25 years....I went out there and me and my farmer friend ate beans and cornbread on Thursdays; his wife cooked lunch for us. But, we had a lot of fun. Initially, we had a registered Angus herd and we’d go up and we’d tag them; my boys got to put tags in their ears, wrestle the calves, and everything else that goes along with farming.\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nWhen did ya’ll move out here?\n\nDr. Harold Hedges: \n\nUh.....1994, yeah...yeah...1994.\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nThis is a delightful, bucolic, beautiful, country setting.\n\nDr. Harold Hedges: \n\nWe’ve got between 7 and 8 acres right here.\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nAnd you have horses.....\n\nDr. Harold Hedges: \n\nYeah.\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nFor a long time....?\n\nMerry Helen Hedges: \n\nOh yeah, we’ve had lots of horses.\n\nDr. Harold Hedges: \n\nWe’ve had six horses, different horses, and we’ve got.....one of them was shot not long after we got out here and that really just killed us; some idiot that didn’t have anything better to do.\n\nMerry Helen Hedges: \n\nWell, he was drunk.\n\n Dr. Harold Hedges: \n\nYeah, but we...\n\nMerry Helen Hedges: \n\nWell, we have this and then, we have down the road back there; we have another acreage...so....\n\n \n\nDr. Harold Hedges: \n\nOne of our children is going to build on another five acres down the road that we bought the same time we bought this.\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nDo you have grandchildren?\n\nDr. Harold Hedges: \n\nWe have nine great grandchildren.\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nGreat grandchildren; ok, that’s wonderful.\n\nDr. Harold Hedges: \n\nWe have seven grandchildren.\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nHow many live here close?\n\nDr. Harold Hedges: \n\nWe’ve got...well, they live her close right now, but... \n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nI’m talking about in central Arkansas.\n\nDr. Harold Hedges: \n\nOh, uh.....\n\nMerry Helen Hedges: \n\nHow many what; grandchildren?\n\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nGrandchildren or great grandchildren; however you want to interpret that.\n\nMerry Helen Hedges: \n\nWell, we have one, two, three grandchildren that live...\n\n\nDr. Harold Hedges: \n\nAll of our sons, we have three sons, and......\n\nMerry Helen Hedges: \n\nOur sons all live here.\n\nDr. Harold Hedges: \n\nThey all live here, they all married, and they are all gainfully employed; thank goodness. Hal is a doctor in a clinic, John works for AT\u0026T, and Dan is a forensic scientist who works for a crime lab; Arkansas State Crime Lab.\n\n \n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nWere you well compensated for your work? I will let you interpret what “well compensated” means.\n\nDr. Harold Hedges: \n\nYeah....well, we have never had a lot of money, you know; but, we’ve had plenty of money. You know the first years, about the first 10 years or so, we pretty much lived or used all the money that we were making at the time; but, we kind of reached a point where we could start saving money. You know when we went into practice, there was not such a gap in what family physicians made and what surgeons and everybody else made; there was a gap, but there wasn’t a huge gap. But when big business, Medicare and big business came into medicine...\n\nMerry Helen Hedges: \n\nInsurance companies...\n\nDr. Harold Hedges: \n\nAnd insurance companies got into medicine, I mean, that gap has just gotten.....\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nWider and wider...\n\nDr. Harold Hedges: \n\nYeah.....just ridiculous...\n\n \n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nNow, I’ve got about six or seven questions that I would like to ask both of you and I think I know the answers to these, but I would like to hear you say them if you feel comfortable. Again, all of these questions are......I pretty well....oh, we didn’t talk about the Orvis job. \n\nLet’s talk about the Orvis job first. How did you end up in the Orvis job? Were you a fisherman to begin with?\n\nDr. Harold Hedges: \n\n(Laughing)...No.\n\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nYou weren’t a fisherman; you were just ......\n\nDr. Harold Hedges: \n\nWell, I....no, the answer is no.....\n\n(Laughing).....\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nOk...\n\nDr. Harold Hedges: \n\nAlright, we belong to the St. Michaels Episcopal Church and there was an avid fly fisherman and he was after me for years to go fly fishing with him. I just kept putting him off with one excuse after another and finally, I said, “Frank, I don’t have anything to go fly fishing with” and he said, “Don’t worry about it; I got all of it” and he almost everything an Orvis would have. So, he and I went fishing out there with the waders, the rods, the reel, the line, the little flies, and everything.....\n\nMerry Helen Hedges: \n\nThis was about in the middle of November...\n\nDr. Harold Hedges: \n\nYeah, it was November. We went fishing on the White River and we caught fish and I had such a good time that I couldn’t stand it. So, I came back and the first thing I wanted to do was get me a fly rod.\n\nMerry Helen Hedges: \n\nOrvis...\n\nDr. Harold Hedges: \n\nNo, I wanted to get me a fly rod; so, I started looking around Little Rock, Arkansas and there were no fly rods to be had in Little Rock, Arkansas. I talked to Frank and Frank gives me this catalog, an Orvis catalog....\n\n \n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nNow, this is not the Frank that we know; this is not....\n\nDr. Harold Hedges: \n\nFrank Round.....\n\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nOh no, this is the wrong Frank who I was....\n\nDr. Harold Hedges: \n\nFrank Round.....so, he gives me this catalog, I pick up the phone, and I called; I was visiting with this fellow and put in an order for everything l need: the waders, the rod, the reel, and ....\n\nMerry Helen Hedges: \n\nThis is when you called Orvis?\n\nDr. Harold Hedges: \n\nI called Orvis and I happened to ask, “Where is the nearest Orvis shop to Little Rock, Arkansas?” because I knew or I had heard that there were Orvis shops and he said, “Well, there is one in Cincinnati and there is one in Denver” and I said, “Are you telling me that there is not an Orvis shop between Cincinnati, Ohio and Denver, Colorado?” .....the light comes on.... (Laughing). My father had a stroke and moved back to Little Rock and he and my mother are living over there in Fox Croft and she takes care of him all day long. He has a good mind and drags his left side around a little bit, but he walks. His left arm is totally paralyzed, but he just picks it up and puts it wherever he wants and it stays there until he moves it.\n\nMerry Helen Hedges: \n\nAnd he had been a real fisherman.\n\nDr. Harold Hedges: \n\nYeah, he was....\n\nMerry Helen Hedges: \n\nHe and his mother, both of them, had been real fishermen.\n\nDr. Harold Hedges: \n\nMostly crank bait and fishing out of a boat.....so, I wanted his ideas about this because I was getting ready to tell her that I wanted to put an Orvis shop here and he called me crazy....these Orvis rods, reels, and all that stuff from Orvis is high, they were high then and still high, and his idea of a fishing thing is a fishing pole, or rod, that costs maybe $10-15, a reel that is $3.00-4.00, and a light, but his boat may cost $400-500. So, he didn’t think it was a good idea and I said, “Well, we are going to try it out.” I’m going fishing and this was mid November....by the first of December, I got an order of a bunch of stuff ...\n\nMerry Helen Hedges: \n\nInventory...\n\nDr. Harold Hedges: \n\nInventory of stuff and we found a great place at the mini-mall where Betty....\n\nMerry Helen Hedges: \n\nWell ....where Graffiti’s Restaurant is now, that was the first Orvis.\n\nDr. Harold Hedges: \n\nThe first Orvis shop was right next door...it was next door to Wiley Cabin’s Liquor Store at the time....but it was like, I don’t know, 500 square feet; it wasn’t very big.\n\nMerry Helen Hedges: \n\nNo, Sign Hunters...\n\nDr. Harold Hedges: \n\nSign Hunters...so anyway, Merry Helen, I, the kids, and some friends of ours were going skiing ....\n\nMerry Helen Hedges: \n\nFor Christmas.\n\nDr. Harold Hedges: \n\nFor Christmas out in Colorado....we leave for Christmas and we’ve got this inventory coming in with no place to put it, so we put it in my mother and father’s house. Word gets out that this...... \n\nMerry Helen Hedges: \n\nWell, pappy decides to go ahead and advertise in the newspaper for the Orvis shop and gave the address telephone number to contact him.\n\n \n\nDr. Harold Hedges: \n\nSo, all this stuff starts coming in and they sell out of their house about half of it before we got back from skiing.... (Laughing).... it was one of the oddest things in the world. So, we moved into the Orvis shop down there and we had about a year’s lease; by the time the year was up, it was obvious that we needed more space. So anyway, we moved up on Cantrell next to Triggers and we were there for five years and then at the end of that time, we moved down to the bottom of Cantrell Hill on...\n\nMerry Helen Hedges: \n\nRebsamen Park Road.....\n\nDr. Harold Hedges: \n\nRebsamen Park Road and we were there until the early ‘80s and then closed it down at that time. My father had died; but one of the priMerry things...this was going to be something that my father could do because my mother would take him up there and put him at the desk everyday and he would point things out to people and he would check folks in and out.\n\nMerry Helen Hedges: \n\nWell and your mom was a huge, great salesperson.\n\n \n\nDr. Harold Hedges: \n\nOh yeah...she could talk an Eskimo into ...she could.”..... (Laughing)....”So....but the kids worked up there after school and on weekends. The time that Merry Helen just really hated was at Christmas time, because it got so busy....so busy.\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nBecause everybody had to work....\n\nMerry Helen Hedges: \n\nWell, Harold’s mother wouldn’t let anybody go home on Christmas Eve; not any of the staff, because you might get them to sell one more thing on Christmas Eve.\n\n(Both Laughing).....\n\nMerry Helen Hedges: \n\nThere were times that they’d be there and I’d have our big Christmas Eve dinner waiting for all my family to come home to eat.\n\nDr. Harold Hedges: \n\nOne nice thing about the Orvis shop was that no matter where we went in the world, I could find something to look at and buy so that it could be a business expense; so, we went all over. You know, looking for wool sweaters and things like that in Scotland and fishing lures...\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nObviously, y’all traveled a lot?\n\nMerry Helen Hedges: \n\nYes.\n\nDr. Harold Hedges: \n\nWell, yeah.....she went to school in Switzerland for how many years....six years?\n\nMerry Helen Hedges: \n\nNine years....\n\nDr. Harold Hedges: \n\nNine years....\n\nMerry Helen Hedges: \n\nJust in the summer; I took a course, a two week course, in the summer.\n\nDr. Harold Hedges: \n\nAnd I....when the course was over, I’d fly over there and then, we’d go ...we went to...\n\n \n\nMerry Helen Hedges: \n\nChina...\n\nDr. Harold Hedges: \n\nYeah, we went to a bunch of places in France and Switzerland. We never did get to Germany.\n\n \n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nAt some point, you retired from your deaconship.....is that how you say it? \n\nMerry Helen Hedges: \n\nYeah...\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nWhat prompted you to retire?\n\nMerry Helen Hedges: \n\nTo retire?\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nYeah, you said that you were a retired deacon.\n\nMerry Helen Hedges: \n\nWell, I am; I was ordained when I was 60 years old and so, my first retirement was when I was 70. Then a good friend who was a physician in Russellville, a pediatrician, was going through a discernment process of the priesthood and she called me and asked if I would be her spiritually friend through the process and so after she was ordained, she was assigned by the Bishop to St. Peter’s in Conway and she called me and said, “Merry Helen, would you come to Conway and be my deacon?” So, we talked to the Bishop and I ended up going to Conway for another five years and I retired when I was 83, I think. But, it was....I was ...I really don’t....I just knew it was time for me not to retire.\n\nDr. Harold Hedges: \n\nYou asked about happenings or people in your life that change your life.....when I was 80 years old, I was attending a lecture at the University of Arkansas and there was a Dr. Neal Barnard who spent his whole medical career looking at the relationship between disease and the food that we eat; Dr. Barnard was a beacon, a true beacon. He told stories of patients of his who changed their diet from the good old western diet to veganism and how it could reverse diabetes, reverse heart disease, and sustain life.\n\nMerry Helen Hedges: \n\nAnd some cancers.\n\nDr. Harold Hedges: \n\nAnd some cancers; yeah....At the end of that lecture, I asked Dr. Barnard...I was a diabetic and taking medication for high blood pressure and high cholesterol and diabetes....I asked Dr. Barnard, “Is it too late for an 80 year old to adopt a vegan diet and make any difference in their life?” He said, “Absolutely” and I came home and I told Merry Helen that I was going on a vegan diet. She says, “I don’t know how to cook vegan, so you’re going to have to cook.”\n\nMerry Helen Hedges: \n\nYou’re going to have to go to the grocery store and cook.\n\nDr. Harold Hedges: \n\nSo, I turned into a vegan/vegetarian....primarily vegan and within about one month, I rechecked my blood sugars and I had to stop the blood sugar medication, which was Metformin, and I stopped the blood pressure medication and my cholesterol had dropped down to below normal or what we call normal. I changed the way that I practiced medicine from that point on and I can’t turn a whole lot of folks into true veganism, but the closer that I can get them to a plant based diet ...the healthier they will be, the less medication they will take, and the longer they are going to live.\n\nMerry Helen Hedges: \n\nHe set up a little school, or workshop; a diabetes workshop.\n\nDr. Harold Hedges: \n\nYeah and I taught veganism for a number of people; we did two workshops at Camp Mitchell, a 2-3 day workshop about chronic disease and the relationship between the food...but, that really changed the way I practiced medicine.\n\n \n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nOk guys, I have a list of questions..... I used to have two right at the end and now, it’s evolving into a list of questions.....\n\nDr. Harold Hedges: \n\nI’ll tell you something that has changed in medicine....\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nOk.\n\nDr. Harold Hedges: \n\nI had two nurses; one of them worked for me for 32 years and the other worked for me for 30 years. I don’t know what has happened to the nurse group, but all the young doctors go through nurses; the turnover is great...but you just don’t hear of any nurse staying with a doctor for more than one or two years...less or whatever and I’m amazed at that. Part of it is the hospitals are paying more.\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nYeah, it’s the corporatization....I think it is the corporatization.\n\nDr. Harold Hedges: \n\nYeah, that’s right; I think you are exactly right.\n\nMerry Helen Hedges: \n\nYeah...\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nI think it’s the corporatization; I think that is a lot of it. Now again this is for both of you; would you do it again?\n\nDr. Harold Hedges: \n\nAbsolutely.\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nWould you live your life as you lived it; buying the cattle farm, going into the Navy, becoming a deacon of the church; would you do it again?\n\nDr. Harold Hedges: \n\nAbsolutely.\n\n \n\nMerry Helen Hedges: \n\nYou know, I just moved into my 89th year and I have a real history; Harold does too. We have histories and can look back and see how things just unfolded as we went along and they’re....I would absolutely do it again if I had the same confidence that I have had.\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\n(All laughing)......how about you Harold?\n\nDr. Harold Hedges: \n\nRight, I would do it again in a heartbeat and I’m not ready to quit.\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nWould you change anything?\n\nMerry Helen Hedges: \n\nLet me think...let me think....let me think......nothing comes to my mind.\n\nDr. Harold Hedges: \n\nI might think twice about getting into some of the things that I’ve gotten into.\n\n(Laughing)\n\nBecause, it’s a lot easier getting into them than getting out. Do you know the cow thing; that was so crazy because this was back in the days when lawyers were trying to figure out how to beat the tax thing, you know save taxes.....so, there was this thing about a ring, a cow, and having a calf, and then it was .....we did this thing and it was written off. We had been in the black Angus business for, I don’t know, 5-6 years or 8s...I don’t know how long and this fellow showed up one day and said, “I want to buy you herd” and I said, “You want to buy my heard?” and he made me such a good deal that I said, “yeah, I’ll sell it.” So, we got out of the black Angus business; lock, stock, and barrel...in one lick. I didn’t have to move them, I didn’t have to sell them, they came and picked them up, wrote me a check, and da-ta da-ta da. We stayed out of the business for a couple of years and then, I couldn’t stand it and got back in just with regular cows; they weren’t registered. Well, it was with my buddy who we bought this place from; he was a character.\n\n \n\nMerry Helen Hedges: \n\nYeah, he was a character; but, he took care of everything.\n\nDr. Harold Hedges: \n\nYeah, he was a character.\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nAgain remember, if you don’t want to answer a question just say, “Next question”.\n\nDo you believe in God?\n\nDr. Harold Hedges: \n\nYeah...\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nIf you do believe in God, do you believe in a personal God or the watchmaker who wound the watch up and let it go? \n\nMerry Helen Hedges: \n\nOh, absolutely, I believe in the living God. I just have a knowing that I follow Christ.\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nOf all the technologies that have changed life, whether in medicine, church, or just whatever...what has changed things the most?\n\nDr. Harold Hedges: \n\nThe internet...\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nAnd how so?\n\nDr. Harold Hedges: \n\nThere is too much socialization, bad socialization, on it; absolutely bad. I mean, it’s..., you know, from what I hear going on in this world now, I think that the internet has more negativity than positivity....the way that I’m looking at it. I think it is just ruining...\n\nMerry Helen Hedges: \n\nIt has the possibility of really being very ____, but it is run by human beings that are...it doesn’t give, for me, any time for reflection; it just fills my brain with information that I don’t reflect on and I’ve stopped trying to take in information. I have more information in my brain than I can use.\n\n \n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nWhen you guys were born in the mid ‘30s, there were probably about 3 billion people in the world and now, there are about 8 billion people in the world.\n\nMerry Helen Hedges: \n\nIt’s hard to even....\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nIs that sustainable? \n\nDr. Harold Hedges: \n\nThe only reason that I think it might be sustainable is because so many of them are dying. I, mean, when you look at all these camps over there where there are 1 million people, they don’t live that long; some of them do. But the rate of death...when you think of wars, famine, disease, and all that....\n\n \n\nMerry Helen Hedges: \n\nIs it sustainable; I don’t think so......unless something really changed and that is going to take something cataclysmic.\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nIf you were the emperor and you were in charge and whatever you said went, what would you do different than what is going on right now? \n\nDr. Harold Hedges: \n\nThat is a reflection question.\n\n \n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nI know it is...... (Laughing).......I know it is.......and it is one that may not lead itself to a straight forward answer.\n\nMerry Helen Hedges: \n\nOh gosh, I would hate to have that kind of power.\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nYeah, me too...\n\nDr. Harold Hedges: \n\nI’d “X” the internet.\n\nMerry Helen Hedges: \n\nNo, I think the internet...see, all of that can be used for the benefit of everybody and I don’t ______, but it is so misused.\n\nDr. Harold Hedges: \n\nThat’s right and I can’t take care of the people here who are misusing it; I can’t convince them that they might be doing this.\n\nMerry Helen Hedges: \n\nWell, I don’t even know who they are.\n\nDr. Harold Hedges: \n\nWell, that part of it....to me, the only...\n\nMerry Helen Hedges: \n\nWell, I don’t want to be in control of other people.”\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nThat’s right.\n\nMerry Helen Hedges: \n\nI just know that the possibility for good is in it and the only person that I have any control over is myself and my use of it.\n\n\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nRight. 50 years from now, you are going to be a picture on the wall; we are all going to be pictures on a wall. Your great, great, great grandchildren are going to look at those pictures and say, “Who is that old man” or “Who is that old woman?” ....what do you want them to know about you and your lives? Because, they may well see this......\n\nThat’s another reflective question..... (Laughing)\n\nMerry Helen Hedges: \n\nI had an answer that came to me pretty quickly and it is an answer that I received when I was a young woman reflecting on my life and doing a spiritual autobiography, so I was going back to my youngest years; the best thing that I learned about God was from my parents because even as a young child, I knew that there was nothing that I could ever do to make them stop loving me.”\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nYeah...\n\nMerry Helen Hedges: \n\nIt brings tears to my eyes....\n\n \n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nThat’s ok.\n\nMerry Helen Hedges: \n\n(Giggling)...\n\nBut that is what I wish them to know.\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nWhat about you Harold?\n\nDr. Harold Hedges: \n\nWell, uh....I think I would like to be known as someone who cared for other people and enjoyed taking care of other people.\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nNow, take those same children.....the great, great, great grandchildren...what do you want for them?\n\nMerry Helen Hedges: \n\nPeace.\n\nDr. Harold Hedges: \n\nI want them to have a happy life without all the wars, terrors, and all the bad things that are going on now. I want that solved by then and I want our national debt to be paid off by one of the generations down the line.\n\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nDo you guys have anything else that you would like to go in this record? This is going to be for you; I mean, this is y’alls and you can do what you want with it. Do you have anything else that we haven’t covered today?\n\nMerry Helen Hedges: \n\nI was saying to Harold the other day that it is so good to go back into your memories. You know, I feel so grounded just this minute now because I brought back into my consciousness so many memories that it makes me feel grounded.\n\n \n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nI tell people that one of the things that I have learned from this process....every day I learn something different when we do this.....but one of the things that I learned from this process is that if you take an hour or so and go back and examine long term memories, the things that are back there that are so deep down in that unending...there are so many layers down, down, down.......and when you examine that for an hour or two, the present memories start taking on more and more life.\n\nDr. Harold Hedges: \n\nOh, that’s interesting.\n\nMerry Helen Hedges: \n\nYou are right, Sam.\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nI believe that to be true....I believe that to be true, because I watch people do that. They say, “Oh yeah....yeah, I remember that now.” I interviewed a guy yesterday, or the day before, who has pretty profound dementia and it was a kind of ...I may take this out of here...but we were talking and it was an unconventional interview because we did a lot of talking and joking. I’d tell a joke and he’d tell and joke then, we’d go on to something more serious like his wife’s maiden name, when they got married, and those kinds of things; but the joking is another thing.....the joking, smiling, and laughing is another thing that brings or gets..... \n\nWell, I’m through; I mean, I have everything that I need on here. \n\nI would encourage you; you mentioned something twice during the process of this that you had done a spiritual biography .....I don’t know if you have done anything.....but when you get back the transcript from this interview, I would encourage you, if you haven’t already done that, to make that part of this transcript; ok.....\n\nMerry Helen Hedges: \n\nOh.\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nTo make those things that you have written about your life, because this is something that somebody might see one of these days: one of your children, grand children, great great grandchildren...they might see that and they might gleam something of real value for themselves.\n\nMerry Helen Hedges: \n\nOk, thank you.\n\nDr. Sam Taggart: \n\nAlright, I’m going to shut things down and I just really do appreciate y’all inviting me into your home and letting me do this.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://centerforthehistoryoffamilymedicine.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2312/collection_resources/97672/file/194776#t=0.0,8830.0212"}]}]}]}