The Quirky Contrarian: A Memoir . . . Or Is It?

Should everybody write a memoir? Absolutely not!

How about a memoir that's not really a memoir but rather a compilation of life experiences shared as engaging, thought-provoking vignettes, poems, and to-the-point political commentary? That is what Dan Collins offers the reader in this quirky volume of stories and opinion that spans his growing up in Chicago in the fifties and sixties, his Catholic school education, his early jobs and family life, and his subsequent career as a Navy physician and civilian cardiologist.

In his retirement he describes how he learned about real poverty by working with the poor in Honduras and serving the homeless at a San Diego soup kitchen. And on a lighter note he recounts gentle tricks and hijinks that leave his family, friends and grandkids wondering, “We know he is doing this, but we don’t know how.”

Zany? Yes.

Serious and poignant at times? Yes.

Amusing? Yes.

This “non-memoir” memoir succeeds because the author is willing to poke fun at his own contrarian personality—as well as those around him.

Dan Collins grew up in an ordinary middle-class Catholic family on the West Side of Chicago in the 1950s and 1960s. He married his high school sweetheart while attending medical school and subsequently served as a Navy physician at Great Lakes, Illinois, and Pensacola, Florida. After a short stint in private practice, he rejoined the Navy and spent six years at Balboa Naval Hospital in San Diego,California. After leaving the Navy, he worked as a practicing cardiologist for more than twenty-two years at Kaiser Permanente in San Diego. He retired in 2008 and lives in San Diego with Sue, his wife of fifty-plus years.