The Grand Del Mar: Eric & Nancy Anderson, Traveling Boy

Eric: Grand Del Mar

The Grand Del Mar:
One Day, A Great Old Dame
By Nancy & Eric Anderson
Photography by Authors

he Great Old Hotels of the World have many things going for them that new hotels can't have: their history. The Grand Hotel Europe in St. Petersburg, Russia, for example, has had nine members of European royalty stay there since 1990. The Mount Washington Hotel in New Hampshire, for its part, hosted the Bretton Woods Monetary Conference in 1944 that established the gold standard and created post-war stability. And the Cape Cod Room in the Drake Hotel in Chicago has a carving on its bar counter top: Marilyn Munroe's initials gouged out by Joe DiMaggio.

You can't buy history like that and indeed many travelers like to stay where a hotel has a past. There are even 128 hotels in a group called Historic Hotels of America. To be sure, "George Washington Slept Here" has a certain cachet -- even if he didn't.

So what can a hotel do if so new it has no history? Say it's only three years old and has the confidence, the conceit even, to call itself "The Grand"? It's a bit like the rookie pitcher who has never thrown a ball in Major League Baseball and is brought in to help his new team in the World Series. What's he going to do? In Hollywood movies he'll strike out all his opponents.

So The Grand Del Mar!

Welcome to the elegant style of Europe and the professional warmth of South East Asia but scattered around 380 acres in laid-back Southern California - in a hotel where the CEO puts his own cell phone number on his business card.

the entrance to the Grand Del Mar at night
The entrance attracts without intimidating

The hotel offers what you would expect a tony beautiful resort to offer: Complimentary room internet access, fitness center, shoe shine and newspapers. A courier service. Same day laundry and dry cleaning - "In by 11AM and back by 6PM." There's a free shuttle to the beach and to the Del Mar railway station where trains run to downtown San Diego. Although 28 percent come for the golf, guests can borrow mountain bikes, ride horses, go sailing or take balloon ascents. Kids' soccer camps are available in season.

The staff shows extraordinary pride in this workplace that's only three years old. Says Pat O'Patrick, a shuttle driver taking us to the trailhead for the 4000 acre Rancho Peñasquitos Reserve nature walk (the hotel can arrange this): "Have you noticed the detailed work in our hotel? The woodwork in the chapel, the gold leaf on the staircase - the marble everywhere? When guests tell me, 'You have a wonderful hotel,' I say to them, 'Thank you for coming; it's wonderful to work here!'"

We meet The Grand Del Mar's onsite naturalist, Dylan Jones, at the trailhead. Sturdy with a mop of uncontrolled blond hair he looks more Scandinavian than the Welsh his name suggests. The hotel has 37 miles of trails, he says. It's clear we're going to learn a lot. And it's clear at the end of the hike that this is a delightful extra the hotel arranges. Your grandkids would love it.

hotel naturalist Dylan Jones orienting visitors on the Rancho Peñasquitos reserve and acorn woodpecker holes on a eucalyptus tree with volcanic pebbles in the background
Dylan Jones, the hotel naturalist, indicates the size of the Rancho Peñasquitos Reserve. The Acorn woodpecker is pretty symmetrical when it hides its stash for winter.

He points to where the Rancho Peñasquitos Creek runs at the bottom of the canyon where willows, sycamores and oaks easily grow. "It's all about the water and how everything in nature is interdependent, intertwined, connected," he says. The Kumeyaah who lived here for 10,000 years existed on sustainable resources that maintained the size of the population. Although they did attempt to hunt or snare animals the basis and mainstay of their diet was plant not animal. In contrast to the coastal Indians who had fish and marine organisms, and the plains Indians who had the buffalo, the natives here found the energy required to hunt animals was more than the nourishment they would get from their source.

We pass a eucalyptus tree with what look like bullet holes in a straight line across the trunk, holes of the kind you see in rural Texas peppered across road signs. "Kids?" we ask.

"No, that's where an acorn woodpecker has hidden its stash for winter," says Jones pointing at a couple of flashy blue birds fluttering in the sky above us, "and those Californian Blue Jays are trying to find it. It shows how if you touch anything in the natural world everything jiggles."

He point out an example of a Californian Scrub Oak, its branches heavy with small acorns. Those trees supported a complete culture, he says. The natives would gather a harvest of acorns, store them in baskets for up to two years to protect against a poor season then, on a daily basis, wash them at the creek and grind them to paste to provide their source of protein. The stream washed out the toxic tannic acid.

California scrub oak acorns, cactus berries, dried-up wild cucumber and poison oak leaves with algae-filled creek in the background
Acorns from the Californian scrub oak and "berries" from cacti provided nourishment for the native populations. A dried-up wild cucumber lacks the seeds used by children in a game like marbles. You can only touch poison oak if you are immune to its allergens. And don't fall in the algae.

We pass a mass of smooth pebbles. "This cobble is 30 to 40 million years old," says Jones, "born of volcanoes in Central Mexico and brought north by river deltas along the San Andreas fault." We see a big, round boulder that, at first glance, looks like a glacier erratic but it is not. It's just a volcanic eruption where ash from the top of the volcano concreted the mass. And we find a rock garden beside a waterfall; it is basement volcanic rock, subluxed magma. And those steps leading down to the waterfall? we ask Jones. He grins and says, "Eagle Scouts' project!"

Adds our guide, "All this life seems chaotic but to me it is all so interconnected. And to me this trip is all about sneaking away from noise. It gets quieter in the canyons. Do you not hear the silence?"

a statue of golfer Bobby Jones with a villa named after him in the background
The land started as a golf course and several tributes to the great Bobby Jones grace the property

Indeed travelers wishing to escape the overwhelming noise in today's cities must be charmed to discover how tranquil the Grand Del Mar is -- even with 249 rooms and several private villas, a golf course, four pools, five restaurants and its own wedding chapel. The hotel's two elegant restaurants are particularly serene with none of the haste some restaurants have to turn the table quickly. Amaya where we dine the first night includes on its menus a Chef's Tasting of three courses with wine pairings for $65, a reasonable repast considering the cost of the wine alone -- and a bargain compared to the price of room service (which is offered 24/7): Room service is charged with a $4 delivery fee and a 20 percent gratuity. A small coffee is $8 and a large $14 yet a cooked breakfast is $25, prices comparable with less distinguished hotels. A lunch poolside might cost $9 for soup, $15 for a grand Burger and $17 for a cheese plate.

The signature restaurant, however, is Addison, named after Addison Mizner whose style of architecture that created Florida's Boca Raton Resort and much of Palm Beach was also the guidance for the Grand Del Mar. The Five Star, Five Diamond Addison is an experience that brings guests from cities far away in California.

We settle in our second evening for dinner at Addison. The wine list that won the Wine Spectator 2010 Grand Award has 193 pages, from a $12,950 magnum of 1982 Pomerol Château Pétrus to a "Skullsplitter" ale at $10 from the Orkney Brewery on that remote Scottish island. There are 15 pages alone each of about two dozen selections for White Burgundy, surely not a common wine in Southern California. "If we don't have the exact choice you want," says our waiter, "We will have something from that very region."

Chef William Bradley in his kitchen, the Addison restaurant
Chef William Bradley "We get out meat from all over the USA and fish from Europe -- Americans love shellfish!

Chef William Bradley glances at his kitchen: "It's team work. Everything together to make sure customers are satisfied, and everything in moderation." Adds our waiter as we finish our meal, "If you keep putting out a good product beyond guests' expectations, people will come - and keep coming."

We chat to Tom Voss, the CEO of the hotel, over coffee the next day. We know the land originally for eleven years had been just a golf course surrounded by gated communities. Unlike the legendary Hotel del Coronado that stands on a expanse of sand on the ocean 25 miles to the south, the Grand Del Mar has no beach. "But we have seclusion," says Voss, "located as we are in a nature preserve. We are close to the airport and the beach and we have the only Mizner-inspired architecture on the West Coast."

We knew about Mizner from staying once at the Boca Raton Resort in Florida. His Spanish Revival affect in The Grand Del Mar impresses. It should. By the time it opened in 2007 it had cost $400 million.

Says Voss, "We commonly hear guests say on arrival, 'Wow! We didn't expect this!' But what really pleases us is to hear that when they leave they often say, 'You have such a friendly staff!'" Voss believes this shows the hotel is performing well: "Beyond the Target. We are in the luxury market," he says, "in an area, San Diego, not well known for luxury. Grand design can be stuffy. How can a grand hotel act upon this stage?"

He leans back in his chair, glances out the window at the unexpected October rain that is beating down on his lawn and answers his own question. "With style and guest service. We are a people service industry. Having great sales people is secondary to service. I tell new employees, 'If you deliver service you have a soul in this business.'"

All this may be interesting to some guests but what's the real story, what's the bottom line? Perhaps that we are seeing what will become ultimately one of the Great Old Dames of America on a par with the Breakers in Palm Beach, Florida, the Broadmoor in Colorado Springs and the Arizona Biltmore in Phoenix. Perhaps it may become California's answer to the great dowager hotels of Europe - and we are getting a chance to be there at the beginning. Is it expensive? Yes. Upscale experiences almost always are -- but good value doesn't necessarily equal cheap, it often means quality.

Tell Eric what you think of his article.
In the meantime, here are some of the feedback we have already received:

Hey Eric and Nancy! As a fellow Traveling Boy journalist, and as a confirmed WW2 aficionado, just wanted you to know how much I loved your story on Arnhem. Really great stuff, and truly brilliant riveting writing.

I’ve been there twice and covered it on my KNX radio show when I was on LA radio, and your story and evocative photos brought back a ton of wonderful and poignant memories. This could have been an amazingly brilliant military operation – as you both know – that might well have ended the War in Europe maybe a year earlier. However, allied misreading -- and in my view disregarding certain aspects of the situation in Holland -- plus the fact that they dropped the paras over 3 days and not in one huge assault at night (and not in the day as they did) doomed the mission to failure.

Your clever words and great photos brought all this graphically to life, and it should be required reading for anyone interested in any aspect of WW2, and certainly should be read by today’s teenagers. Again Bravo and well done!!!!

John Clayton
Travel with A Difference

We just couldn't leave your website before saying that we genuinely enjoyed the high quality information you offer for your visitors... Would be back frequently to check up on new stuff you post!

Raanana

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What a fantastic write-up!

I could almost copy and paste most of your narrative verbatim as it reflects our fantastic experience with Fantasy Cruises almost to a tee. It was truly one of the greatest vacations my girlfriend and I have ever experienced.

Cheers!
Mike Richard, Editor, Vagabondish.com

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One of my dreams is to go to Alaska by way of cruise. This article very much intensifies the longing for that dream to come to fruition. I simply cannot wait much longer. And I will never again be able to think of a waterfall without picturing myself "nosing up" to it. Thank you for this intriguing, virtual journey.

Sandra Mines, Seattle, WA

Thank you for writing, Sandra. Alaska really is a wondrous place. Re "Nosing up" to a waterfall: we have a different article up at Physician's Money Digest on the same cruise (Small Ship Cruising: Alaska by the Back Door). The third last set of images there shows a crew member filling a jug of ice water from a waterfall while standing in the bow of the ship! Best wishes. Get there! To Alaska one day.

Eric & Nancy

Loved your photos from Alaska! Because I am the Director of Sales & Marketing for Westmark Hotels, I am up in AK and the Yukon quite often to visit our hotels and staff! But your pictures were so enjoyable-love to see the "real" Alaskans!

Heidi Howeiler, Seattle, WA

Hi Ms. Howeiler, That was kind of you to write and yes, you do see real people in Alaska, don't you? Alaskans always remind us off rural Texans or Australians in the isolated Red Centre of their country: hard working, sensible, rolled-up-sleeves people with no affectations. We love your Westmark hotels and we take our hats off to the person who started your company, Chuck West. What a great guy!

Eric & Nancy

Enjoyed your realistic and practical comments on Provence. Always wanted to go there ever since reading Peter Mayle's 2 books on Provence. But the two times I went to France, time was always short, so we spent our days in Paris. And now you say, it is losing its unique charm to tourism. (Sigh). It's always a choice between sharing beauty, and keeping it hidden. The world lurches on. Thanks for your thoughts.

Dette, Iligan City, Philippines

Hi Dette, (Would love to see all your waterfalls), Thank you for writing. Provence is busy in the tourist season but it hasn't lost all its charm or the quirkiness Mayle talks about in his book Provence A to Z. It's still a place to visit. Appreciate hearing from you. Best wishes.

Eric & Nancy

What a great article, especially regarding Louis XIV. I was not aware there was a contemporary account of his execution. It was fascinating. Thank you!

Celtic fan, Nashua, MA

Dear Celtic fan, Thanks for writing. I didn't know about the account of his execution either till I stumbled upon it. Sad to think that the French revolutionaries thought they could be both judge and jury. We are lucky to have a more elegant system today. Thanks for writing.

Eric & Nancy

Nancy and Eric,

Enjoyed reading your article on Santa Fe, NM. I was in AZ travel nursing in 2008 and 2009 and made it to Santa Fe. Took a lot of pics and really loved walking around the old town while I was there. Hope to be able to take the wife there in the future.

Brett Eidson, Soso, MS

Hi dude! Nice to see your site. It's beautiful. My congratulations.

New York

Hi New York, Thank you for writing. Best wishes.

Eric & Nancy

Hi www.travelingboy.com! Your web-site is very interesting and I want to tell www.travelingboy.com G'night.

New York

Dear New York,

Thank you for writing. Glad you find the site interesting. We are here for you. Keep visiting.

Eric & Nancy

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This is all genuine. I will return to scan.

Keflavik

Hi Keflavik, Thank you for writing. We are happy you will return.

Eric & Nancy

Good article.

On Behalf Of Diane, Port Ludlow, WA

Thanks for writing from Port Ludlow. We hear that's a beautiful place. Best wishes.

Eric & Nancy

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When I was hurt in a boat accident my life would be changed totally. I really don't post much but thanks for the good times I have here. Love this place. Long time lurker, thought I would say hello!

Miami

Dear Miami, Thanks for writing. It's nice to hear from you. Hope you are getting better. Glad you get some good times at Traveling boy. Good luck.

Eric & Nancy

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Dear friends,

My name is Adelina. I am a 22 years girl from Italy. I was looking for a free translation software and I found one. Program's name is Babel Fish and it supports 75 languages. I installed it but I could not understand how to use it. I am not a computer expert. Can someone help me please on how to run this.The link is here :http://access.im/3/babelfish. I thank you very much for your help.

Adelina, Celaya

Adelina, I didn't want to download it but I saw examples online. It seemed easy. You select the page you want translated, copy it and paste it into the box. You then click on the button to translate. You may have to do one page at a time. You can also use Google to translate a page; that's what I do because I don't want to load too much software.

Eric & Nancy

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Amiable brief and this mail helped me a lot in my college assignment. Thanks you seeking your information.

WordPress Themes, Gray Mountain

We are glad to have been of help. Best wishes.

Eric & Nancy

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What's up everyone? Great forum. Lots of lovely people. Just what I need. Hopefully this is just what i'm looking for. Looks like I have a lot to read.

Spanish John, Benidrom

Encouraging to get your feedback. Glad to hear from you. Thank you for writing.

Eric & Nancy

Nice dispatch (http://www.travelingboy.com/travel-eric.html) - and this enter helped me a lot in my college assignement. Thank you as your information.

Gray Mountain

Hi Gray Mountain,

Thank you for your comment. Your email reminds us all at TravelingBoy how important it is to be accurate in what we write. Good luck with your studies and have a great life.

Eric & Nancy

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Hello people, I just signed up on this splendid community forum and wanted to say hey there! Have a wonderful day!

Jacksonville

Hi Jacksonville, We are pleased to hear from new readers at TravelingBoy. Your feedback encourages us all to do better. Thank you for writing.

Eric & Nancy

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What a fascinating bit of Russian history you wrote about! How sad to learn that 100,000 churches were reduced to create skating rinks and such during the revolution, after seeing the photo of the interior of a magnificent church filled with art! War is so devastating on so many levels! The art of their culture is so beautiful as is shown in the image of the painted box! Thank you,

Yoka, Westlake Village, CA

Dear Yoka,

Thank you for writing. Nancy is originally Lutheran and Eric is a dour Scot, more used to the frequently cold and often cheerless churches of his native land so we were both overwhelmed to see the beauty of Russian churches. It was kind of you to write, Yoka.

Thank you,
Eric & Nancy

Interesting observations.... Very informative and thought provoking. Questions.... What would be the best way to get from Moscow Airport DME to boat dock? taxi? prearranged limo? prepaid Viking Tours transfer? Any idea on cost and travel time for taxi or limo or Viking Cruise pickup from airport to boat? We shall be flying to Moscow on our own. Do you happen to have an address for the river boat dock that Viking Cruises uses in Moscow? I would be nice to Google map the situation. Thanks,

Robert Hopwood, Ottawa, Canada

Hi Bob,

Excuse the delay; we were on a trip. I do understand your question and will try and get you an answer. The Viking river dock in Moscow was for us in the north part of the city but once we were on the boat it was an easy ten minute walk to the Metro station that had us downtown within 30 minutes. I'm a lot more relaxed at the end of a trip than at the beginning and therefore I always feel taking the cruise-line sponsored trip from the airport to the dock makes sense: What starts right usually ends right.

Eric & Nancy Anderson

Hi Bob,

I’m back with more information. The river port’s address is Northern River Boat Station Leningradsky Prospekt, Khimki. If you Google that you will see it is about 15 minutes’ walk from two Metro stations. http://www.aptouring.com.au/files/documents/17/29022_Moscow2.pdf .

I spoke to Nancy at customer relations at Viking Cruises at the new LNR Warner Center in 5700 Canoga Avenue, Woodland Hills, Calif.

She was very helpful and advises you to take the Viking transportation service. She is biased, of course, but she’s right. Moscow DME airport is 40 miles away on the opposite side of the city, at least two hours driving time. The airport has no Metro station; you’d have to take the Aeroexpress train to Paveletsky station then change to the Metro and go to Rechnoy Vokzal station then take a cab to the port. A cab all the way from DME would cost at least 2000 rubles (more than $70). That’s less than the $60 each that Viking would charge…but…I think you’d be ill-advised to do it on your own. Why start the trip where the potential to screw up is so likely? Moscow taxi drivers are as dishonest as most tourist city cab drivers and probably yours won’t speak English. I think the address in Russian is

BUT...

I strongly discourage you from economizing on this and doing it on your own. Buy the transfer and save money somewhere else.

We have other Viking Volga web articles up at http://travelingboy.com/archive-travel-eric-russia.html and at http://www.ericandersonsworld.com/story.php?id=6LvDg.

Good luck. Great show Canada’s putting on for the Olympics!

Eric & Nancy Anderson

Your blog keeps getting better and better! Your older articles are not as good as newer ones you have a lot more creativity and originality now keep it up!

Reseller Hosting, London

Hi, Is it Britni Freeman?

Thank you, we think... We suspect your comments are valid. In fact we think all of us writing for TravelingBoy are starting to get into the swing of things and do a better job -- and your encouragement spurs us to do even better. Thank you for writing. Have a good 2010,

Eric & Nancy Anderson

Dear Nancy and Eric

Thank you so much for the wonderful article on statues in Europe. Statues are my favorite art form and your descriptions were delightful to read - knowledge and fun together. I do still wonder about that foot in Rome...

Peggy - Pasadena, CA

Hi Peggy,

Thank you for writing. We appreciate your comments. We used to be critical of people who can't identify the persons on statues in foreign cities -- until one day a tourist stopped us in our own San Diego and asked us, in vain, for details on a statue we'd never noticed before! We wonder about that Roman foot too. If Eric had stood any closer he'd be in his typical foot-in-mouth position.

Eric & Nancy Anderson

I live in Santa Fe and see and delight in it every day, but your writing makes it sparkle even more. How nice to see Santa Fe through your eyes. Great photos!

Cynthia Whitney-Ward - Santa Fe, NM

Dear Dr. Anderson:

I have followed your writing career for as long as I can remember, and I think the thing I enjoy the most about your travel writing is the sense of joy and discovery that leads the reader to anticipate ever corner you turn in your travels.What a delightful traveling companion you are, and I know have always been, with that wonderfully eternally youthful joie de vivre...I wonder:do you feel that East, West, home is best? And where IS that place you have never been, but want to go most of all,yet? Bring we, your devoted readers ever along!

CAT -- San Diego (Scrips Ranch), CA

Dear CAT,

Thank for taking the time to write to TravelingBoy.com. You are very kind. We don't know that travel writers make the best companions; we suspect they may be obsessed with getting the best photograph or may monopolize the guide with questions so that others don't get to ask what interests them. What place is best? Well, it may be fun to sit in a rickshaw in Beijing or try to master the Metro in Moscow, but -- as you imply -- it is good to get home after trips.

Home is as comfortable as a pair of old shoes and home for many of us fortunately contains family.

We've never been to Easter Island and may have missed the boat (no pun intended) there. The island is losing its innocence; we've seen that happen at Machu Picchu or, closer to home, at Lake Powell in Arizona. So maybe the best travel advice is: Go when you are fit and healthy, before rising prices make a destination inaccessible -- and before hordes of tourists ruin any destination's mystique.

With best Holiday Wishes from Traveling Boy,

Eric & Nancy Anderson

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What a fantastic primer on New York City. I think you have really captured its essence with this exciting overview of its offerings. Well done!

Gillian Abramson - New York

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You describe a city on wheels - er, wings - and an absolutely perfect way to travel. SHOWERS & FLOWERS! Amazing! I love that your passion for all-things-aviation comes through in this story about an almost unbelievable airplane. Thanks for breaking the news in such an engaging way!

Richard Frisbie - Saugerties, New York

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Enjoyed your blog on Romania. Noticed you called Bucharest "The Paris of the East." I wonder, is there any city not called "The Paris of something." I've read San Francisco is 'the Paris of the West,' Buenos Aires 'The Paris of South America,' and even Tromso, Norway 'The Paris of the Arctic.'

Terry Cowan - Fresno

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Hi Terry,

Thanks for writing to TravelingBoy. And thanks for educating me; I didn't know that about Tromso, didn't even know there was a Tromso. I heard Bangkok called the Venice of the East when I was there and, in two weeks, I'm heading for the Venice of the North, St. Petersburg, Russia.

It does become a bit silly, doesn't it? But we are originally an immigrant nation that was Eurocentric. Maybe it gave our forefathers confidence even courage when they took old names, old ideas to the New World with them. I know I feel nostalgic if I drive around Ontario, Canada and see all the British place names.

I appreciate your email. Thank you for writing.

Eric

Eric -

Enjoyed your article on Madrid. I noticed that you find it superior to Rome. Most of the Spanish folks that I meet seem to prefer Barcelona. How would you rate that city?

Samuel K
Seattle

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Hi Samuel,

We loved Barcelona although driving around the city was surprisingly complicated as our maps were inadequate. The cathedral had scaffolding around it so I couldn't get the pictures I wanted but we found the architecture fascinating and the Picasso museum rewarding. We were anxious to get on the road to Costa Brava and didn't have more than a couple of days in Barcelona.

Thanks for writing.
Eric

Great article on Madrid. I've heard there is a rivalry between the people of Madrid and Barcelona. In which city are the people friendlier? How about for hipness? I noticed you were Scottish. I felt a similar thing in Scotland, with a Glasgow v. Edinburgh vibe.

Gary
Santa Monica

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Thank you for writing to TravelingBoy, Gary. We found Barcelona friendlier.

Maybe that's because it's not the capital and it's not so busy either. Maybe it's because the Gaudi architectural influence is pervasive and -- to both its citizens and tourists -- comforting. Maybe it's because Barcelona is the gateway to the work of artist Salvatore Dali, and his spirit catches us. (I don't know much about art but I've seen a lot of Dali's work enough to think he never took himself too seriously and often painted tongue in cheek. Maybe fun people spring for fun places?) Hipness? Madrid is more formal and dressy but Barcelona, I believe, is more hip maybe, again, because it's more fun.

Your points about Scotland are valid. It's more than a joke. The Glaswegians are more down to earth. I think we see it here in the belief that if you had a flat tire in Middle America passers-by would be more inclined to stop and help than perhaps New Englanders.

- Eric

Dear Eric,

I liked the article. As I read it, I was wondering how you as a physician were influenced by Hippocrates. What influence did this historical figure have on the practice of medicine beyond the obvious 'oath.' Why is Hippocrates considered to be such a paragon of medicine? DWA - San Pedro, CA

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Dear David,

Thank you for writing to Travelingboy.com.

Hippocrates is revered because he believed his duty was to the individual patient, not to the community at large. This is a very important premise. The Romans, whose empire followed that of the Greeks, achieved much in health matters by emphasizing clean drinking water and personal hygiene, and created great national works like aquaducts and public baths but wealthy Romans apparently preferred Greek doctors as their personal physicians.

Hippocrates is also respected because he brought intellectual thought to diagnosis. He taught his students to use their five senses in assessing patients and was openly critical of the junk science of his day as practiced by the priest-physicians who preyed on the fear and ignorance of the ill persons who came to them.

It is true that not all medical chools today require graduating doctors to take the Hippocratic Oath but most conscientious physicians base their lifetime commitment to the practice of medicine on the life and teachings of that one man.

Or so I think. Perhaps if we knew more about our heroes they would seem less heroic. But in Hippocrates' case he did leave a record of his thoughts and some of his principles are today as strong as ever.

Thank you for writing, it is appreciated.

Eric

Stay tuned.