Curiouser and Curiouser

I don't remember the particulars that led up to the invitation, but suddenly I found myself on the way to the Florida Keys in a yellow Buick convertible with the inimitable Jimmy Drye. He was a gift from my mother who knew him first. He had performed her hysterectomy and ultimately did her breast cancer surgery. They had become friends before all this horror, and she knew we were bound to appreciate each other. Strange to have your mother arrange your liaisons. I met him at her apartment in Louisville in the converted carriage house behind the old mansion on Cherokee Road. The night after her surgery he called asking me to meet him at a neighborhoood bar and grill to discuss her prognosis. I suffered from a certain naivete in those days. I met him and it was a revelation. He actually believed in "courting" a woman he informed me. He totally blew me away with his knowledge of poetry and the ability to quote long passages. I had never before been "courted."

The next morning he disappeared about 6 a.m. He soon reappeared bringing each of us a crystal glass with champagne and strawberries, and we toasted our discovery of each other. He invited me to watch him perform his magic at Louisville General. I watched on closed circuit TV along with his interns as he performed his surgical wizardry. We dined and danced and reveled in each other. He gave me a proclamation from the Governor of Kentucky making me a Kentucky Colonel. And he invited me to go with him on a vacation to the Keys.

We stayed in Islamorado where we could work with a tennis pro friend. Days were early arising to watch the sun come up, breakfast , and then off to tennis. I was a competent player and was glad for the instruction. We often spent afternoons playing doubles with the pro and his wife. Some afternooons were spent snorkeling and spear fishing among the coral reefs.

One day the tennis pro asked us to play doubles with an older couple, who were also students. They were a delightful pair, energetic and considerate of each other. Hans and Margaret were a treat, cheerfully teasing each other over missed shots and extolling each other's virtues. Margaret kept call Hans "bubeleh," which mystified me. Jimmy and I had speared two Florida lobsters that morning, and Margaret invited us to dinner if we would bring our lobster. Imagine our overwhelming surprise when discovered that our hosts were H. A. and Margaret Rey, the creators of Curious George. How incredibly fortunate we were!

The Reys told us many stories during dinner and the late evening. They told us the story of their escape from the Nazis. They had met in their youth in the city of their birth, Hamburg, Germany. Margaret was born on May 16, the same day as I, much to my delight. They met again in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, in 1935, where Hans was working in a family business, and Margaret had gone to escape the political upheaval in Germany. They soon married and moved to Paris and started work on a children's book. But the Nazis were moving toward Paris and they knew they must escape. Just ahead of the Germans, early on the morning of June 14, 1940, they set out on two bicycles with only the clothes on their backs and a little food. For several days they rode furiously for the French-Spanish border as the Nazis entered Paris. When they reached Lisbon they sold their bicycles for train fare. Eventually, they made their way back to Brazil and from there to New York City. In 1941 Houghton Mifflin published Curious George. The telling of their story lasted several hour and several drinks. We spent many days playing tennis and visiting with the Reys. I am doubly blessed for my time with them and with Dr. James C. Drye.