Brian Shaffer
Growing up in Dallas, Dr. Gutekunst was our family doctor and I was something of a frequent patient to the practice. While delivering newspapers on Sunday morning, I fell out of the open door of our Ford Galaxy 500 driven by my mother and ended up in a position where she ran over both of my feet, damaging one such that I could not walk. Later in the day, I as taken to Doctor's Hospital. A very concerned bone doctor (Dr. Goldstein or Goldberg?) noticed the extensive bruising on both of my legs and had orderlies take my mother to the next room so that he could question me about the bruising. He obviously felt that the story of mom running over my feet with the car was hokey especially given my bruises. He was concerned that I was being abused. I played as a defensive fullback in soccer and the majority of the bruises were soccer injuries. I was small for my age and tended to get beat up more when colliding with attacking forwards of the opposing teams. It was long about the second time he had me explaining how each individual bruise occurred (apparently trying to determine if my explanations were consistent or maybe just made up to cover for being abused) that Dr. Gutekunst came into the ER. I am not sure how he came to be there, but he was searching for us and came in and asked the bone doctor what he had. The bone doctor explained that I claimed that my mother had run over me with her car. Dr. Gutekunst listened thoughtfully, nodding his head as he did so, then asked which foot was injured. And in his comedic straightman and deadpan way, said something along the lines of, "Right. That's just Brian Shaffer. I will tell you what. You carry him out to the parking lot and hold him down while I get my truck. I will run over his other leg and that should keep him out of trouble for a while." He said it all very seriously and with a straight face and there was a delay of several seconds before the bone doctor really understood that Dr. Gutekunst was joking. Mom was allowed to rejoin us and Dr. Gutekunst smiled as he said something to mom…for which she was VERY relieved. That was some 36 years ago. To this day, I have never had a better doctor who seemed to actually be interested in his patients. I will never forget his office with the Mickey Mouse phone and all sorts of gizmos and toys. On one of the last times that I saw him while home from college, I ended up waiting in his office for him and and took the time to read some of the things he had on his walls. I remember being very impressed with a particular yellowed letter framed in what I recall as being a subdued inexpensive frame, like it was nothing terribly special. The was the letter from Congress explaining his actions and reasons for being given the Bronze Star during the Korean War. Assuming I recall it correctly, he went behind enemy lines to recovered downed American soldiers after their position had been overrun along with litter bearers. I never had a clue that he was a hero. He was just my doctor, one that I liked and trusted. I never would have had a clue about his military past had I not had to wait for him that day. I was very impressed.