The Palm Beach Post from West Palm Beach, Florida • Page 12

A12-The Post, Sunday, December 27, 1981 Mickey From Page 1- 4 r. ft s. ft. am. jam.

A 1 The photographs in Mickey Van Gerbig's Palm Beach home eflect a faster-paced past that many envied mm flying off on the weekends to run the Oakland Seals of the National Hockey League. "We had a little trouble adjusting to that," said Jim Terrell, a classmate. "But you'd have never known that Mickey weas rich. He'd shoot 69, we'd all shoot 100 and we'd have a great time. And he got good grades, too." Sports business brought Rosen-bloom and Van Gerbig together.

They planned, argued, laughed and trusted one another. Early in 1979, Van Gerbig was staying in Rosenbloom's Los Angeles house when he heard Rosenbloom had drowned in the Atlantic Ocean near his Florida house, in Golden Beach just north of Miami. "People just want to look at the glitter when they think of Mickey," Barry said. "They don't want to think and tennis team captain who had avoided even the weakest drugs, found he had become addicted to the narcotics he had taken to relieve the pain. "That line, 'The only thing we have to fear is fear is so true," Van Gerbig said the other day.

"If you had told me at the start of all this bow much was going to happen to me, I would have died of fright. But in the end, nothing was really as bad as I had imagined it to be. You really find that you are capable of tolerating a lot. But don't think I didn't consider suicide." Though insulated against most of the common man's problems, Van Gerbig had spent much of his life until his illness doing things for others. He had become fond of Johnny Warren, who makes golf clubs at the West Palm Beach Country Club, so he helped put Warren's children through college.

When George Burns, who has won more than $600,000 on the professional golf tour, was younger and seeking an entree to the sport's highest levels, Van Gerbig took him to play at such courses as Seminole in North Palm Beach at no charge -1- and set up some games for Burns with Jack Nicklaus. "I owe part of my career to Mickey," Burns said. Van Gerbig gave money to Dennis Walters, once an aspiring pro who became paralyzed after a golf cart accident. To such friends as golf professionals Ben Crenshaw and Jerry Pate he offered business and legal advice which, as Crenshaw says, "means so much because you know Mickey cares about you. His heart must weigh 50 pounds." When Frank Gifford's son got into some minor trouble in New Jersey, Van Gerbig counseled the boy, talking, the sportscaster recalled, "as if he were the older man with kids, not me." He made small gestures phone calls to friends who were depressed and big, serving on the board at St.

Mary's Hospital and raising millions to finance expansion. Born with a Brooks Brothers label, he did not check for one in his friends, whether they were Vincent Draddy, the chairman of Izod who was Van Gerbig's neighbor for five years, or Tom Reynolds, the caddie master at the Everglades Club who made a special golf bag tag for Van Gerbig be cause "Mickey isn't cheap and everybody over here likes him." But all those friends were unable to -help Van Gerbig as he struggled through the past 30 months. Many times when they called Van Gerbig's house they were told by Ennie Ayra-vanen, his housekeeper, or Mike Lin-ville, a staff of five people rolled into one enterprising young man, that Van Gerbig was out. In truth, he simply didn't want to face anyone. In the end, everybody discovered that only Mickey Van Gerbig could help himself.

It started with a pain in his stomach. Van Gerbig was planning to fly to New York early in September 1979 to play in the Robert F. Kennedy tennis tournament, a charity event that precedes the U.S. Open. Tests proved inconclusive and Van Gerbig decided to make the trip and consult his doctor when he returned.

The pain grew so intense, however, that it began waking him up, and at the tournament he had to leave the court and sit in the shade until it subsided. Finally he told his host, Oleg Cassini, that he felt so bad he was going to fly back to Florida. Tired of shuttling back and forth between doctors in West Palm Beach, Van Gerbig called an old friend in Houston, who advised him to fly there immediately. He was admitted to Methodist Hospital in Houston, where a physician, using a tube inserted in Van Gerbig's mouth, "scoped" his digestive tract and said his stomach looked "pretty messy." "Now I know surgery is coming, but I'm naive," Van Gerbig said. "Then the next morning my doctor comes in and there's a somber look on his face.

I said, 'Sit down and tell me the bad He told me how serious it was and now I'm getting scared. Your mind goes berserk. Naturally, they kept pelting me with drugs." Frank Sinatra telephoned. Van Gerbig's brother Barry and his beloved aunt, Fif i Schiff, went to the hospital, where humor occasionally intruded. As Van Gerbig was being wheeled to the operating room, the attendants looked at him and thought they had the wrong patient, not believing Van Gerbig was 38.

A team of surgeons from the Baylor College of Medicine operated for four hours. Van Gerbig had lymphoma, which fortunately had been confined to his stomach and had not spread to other tissues in his body. Both his stomach and his spleen were removed, and his esophagus was connected directly to his small intestine, forming a new route for food to travel. One doctor described Van Gerbig as being "fortunate despite his misfortune," meaning that while he had contracted cancer, the type was not highly malignant, thus enhancing prospects not only for his survival but his recovery. The doctors are certain to this day that they removed all the cancer.

Van Gerbig's otherwise good health helped. He was walking while still in intensive care, was released after five weeks and was able to return to West Palm Beach for therapy because Good Samaritan Hospital has a linear accelerator a relatively new machine designed to scatter less radiation. He began the 40 radiation treatments early in 1980. "He came through almost too well," said Barry, Mickey's older brother who is a psychologist in Rutland, Vt. "I came down in March of 1980, about three months or so after the operation, and I was amazed at how well he was doing." Yet the year had taken its toll.

Physically, of course, his life had changed. The stomach is basically a reservoir for food, allowing us to eat at long intervals. The shock to his system was so great that when, just after surgery, he tried to drink a solution of four parte water and onepart consomme, he suffered horrible cramps. Later, when he tried a breakfast of white r- Un of the past. Our aunt was great to us and her husband John Fell gave us counterbalance to tbe gloom, but it never does take the place of a father.

I think Rosenbloom's death really shook him up. Here, again, another loved one had And he was going through the divorce." Essentially, Van Gerbig not only had to fight his illness and his drug addiction, he had to confront himself to become strong enough for the fight itself. "To me, being on drugs finally became a personal defeat that I took seriously enough to do something about," Mickey said. Barry said, "I think Mickey had so much grief and hatred built up toward our father because of his drinking that one day when he looked in mirror he saw our father, and saw that unless he picked exquisite from our unique by these most Aft classics in the truest A AT aw Lamps Repaired and Rewired LIGHTING If 7 I sft SMH Mm fcy twi MHWwr for its glamour himself up he was going to wine up like him, killing himself. Pushed by his girl friend, Toni lan- degard, who moved in with himltwo years ago and endured the bad tines, Van Gerbig last summer admittd his problem, the first step.

In additn to the Percodan, he was receivingdoses of methadone, a powerful nicotic that can create what doctors call a "blocking effect" on other drig, enabling patients to substitute it for something else, usually heroir, The effects also last much longer, oising the chance that addicts will overcome a habitual tendency to reach for a painkiller such as Percodan every two or three hours at the slightest tringe. Van Gerbig's pain took three trms: abdominal, from the surgery andradi- Continued on the Next Page lighting accessories 55 and splendid collectiti distinguished makers: sense of the word, brosss, VlJ 8 8 Til Ira ftiil I can also grow accustomed to and ultimately rely on narcotic medicine that may have been prescribed with the best intentions. With many drugs for pain, addiction can begin in a week depending on the dose and the drug then becomes a functioning component in the biochemistry of the brain. Subsequent pain that a person attributes to a medical malfunction may actually be a flash of withdrawal. At his worst, Van Gerbig was taking 20 Percodan tablets a day, five times the recommended dose, having gone from taking one-half of a pill to taking two at a time.

From mid-1980 until mid-1981, he was admitted four times to the emergency room of Good Samaritan Hospital and three times to St. Mary's after suffering what he thought were kidney stone attacks, which he believed had been caused by his inability to flush out his body with large doses of fluids. Van Gerbig had begun to worry not so much about his medical condition, but about his supply of Percodan. "I can't tell you how the feeling is," he said, "to know that it's Friday and that you have to tough it out over the weekend but you've only got 20 Percodan left and you're taking 20 a day. "You don't want to admit anything's wrong.

You want to mimimize it. The doctors tried to figure out a way for me not to get pills. But they couldn't stop me. If they tried, I'd simply go to another doctor. I flew out to the Crosby tournament for a day and felt a little withdrawal.

I went to an eye doctor, told him my old story, and he said, 'Gee, I can't leave you hanging like So it worked again. I got very smart about this. I could act as though I was absolutely dying. See, I'm like a squirrel now. I'm hoarding them.

And I could always find someone who would give them to me." Howell Van Gerbig who would be called Mickey, was born in New York City 40 years ago into a world of three-piece suits and country clubs. He is descended from Anthony Joseph Drexel of Philadelphia, the banker who went into business with J.P. Morgan; from John Fell, an original partner in the Lehman Brothers securities firm; from Ogden Mills, secretary of the Treasury under Herbert Hoover. Ogden Phipps, chairman of Bessemer Trust, is his second cousin. One might be tempted to conclude that life dealt Ven Gerbig a pat hand, but, as his brother said, "There was wealth, but not always a wealth of love." Their mother, Dorothy Fell Van Gerbig, described by all as a beautiful, loving woman, died of a cerebral hemorrhage when Mickey was 4.

Howell Van Gerbig Sr. won nine letters at Princeton and pushed both his sons to become good golfers. He gave them winters in Palm Beach, where they could play at Seminole, summers at their home in Westbury, Long Island, where they could play at Meadow Brook, but he was an absentee father who drank heavily. In 1964, when Mickey was in law school, Howell Van Gerbig, though he had been on the wagon for almost a year, shot himself. "I look back on our lives and see this series of losses," Barry said.

"That sets the stage for the last three years of Mickey's life. Mickey, I think, has tended to hoard his grief. I look at him and think, 'There but for the grace of God go With all the wonderful things he does for people, Mickey is saying, 'Don't leave Whether by coincidence or out of need, Van Gerbig has struck up a number of close friendships with men old enough to be his father. Oleg Cassini is 68. Morton Downey is 80.

Vincent Draddy is 74. Ben Hogan, the golfer, is 69. But his closest and least likely -older friend was probably Carroll Rosenbloom, the late owner of the Los Angeles Rams. In the mid-60s. Van Gerbig was a law school student, a WASP who had Inherited money.

Rosenbloom was Jewish, acerbic and a self-made millionaire. But, like his father, Van Gerbig has no patience for snobs. In law school he lived two lives, playing golf for Coca-Colas on a shoddy municipal course in St. Petersburg with classmates working their way through school who made him wait until after 4 p.m. when the greens fees decreased to $2, then toast, a poached egg and a strip of bacon, he was full after three bites and suffered more cramps.

He couldn't throw up, but he was taking Compazine to calm the nausea induced by his surgically altered anatomy. And he was changing mentally. He had been given Demerol, a narcotic, after surgery, particularly when he suffered cramps trying to eat. One day he ventured out for the first time, to lunch with a friend's sister. "I tried to eat some potato leek soup," he recalled, "and it hurt a little and the first thing I thought was that I wanted to go back to the hospital and get a shot.

I was going through the dependence thing." When he was discharged, he lived for three weeks with Dave and Tally Marr, old friends from Houston. One evening, when one of his doctors visited, Van Gerbig complained about his pain and was given one-half of a Per-codan, another narcotic. "I took it and got that wonderful warm feeling," Van Gerbig said. "And I said, 'Gee, can I have some "So my day settled into a routine. After being up in the morning for a couple of hours, I'd take half of a Percodan and go lie down and groove for an hour and a half.

So when I got back here, that's when I began painting a much bleaker picture of my pain in order to get drugs." Hearing his close friends remember those spring months of 1980, the lis-. tener gets a picture of a man increasingly propping up his life with artificial, less stable supports than the defense mechanisms he had relied on for the previous 37 years. Tension was building. Charlene Challinoor, one of Van Gerbig's friends, recalled that when he began having stomagh pains, he said, "The doctors say I may have an ulcer. Maybe I ought to open up a little more, let more out." Then in June he tried to play in the county amateur golf tournament.

He only lasted two of three but, worse, his sight began to fail, as though his eyes were smeared with Vaseline. He had stopped taking Percodan at least he recalls fighting a' good fight against the urge but when an opthalmologist told him cataracts had formed on both eyes, his will collapsed. Van Gerbig has always cherished his golf; he has used it to meet friends and attract business for his law firm, Gunster, Yoakley, Criser and Stewart. "There are rainmakers and there are guys who do legal work," said Bobby Scott, one of the shareholders in the firm. "Mickey was a rainmaker." The two most important mementoes in his bar are the telegram informing him he had passed the Florida Bar exams, and his trophy for winning the 1977 Florida Amateur championship.

He was asked to be commissioner of the pro tour and he has paid his own way -to speak at the Professional Golfers Association qualifying school for young players. Hearing the news about his eyes, he sincerely believed he would lose his sight, and with It his golf. "I was just hanging by a thread until then," he said. "Then I really got depressed. I had been real great, but my first thought was.

'What else is going to happen to "Mickey was convinced that he was going to lose his sight," his brother Barry said. "He was so morose and so upset. From there on it was downhill. Three weeks later he was a basket case. His defense mechanisms Just couian handle it, and God Almighty, I can't blame him." Thus began his retreat, not to the hospital this time but to his house, a comfortable three-bedroom residence offering a lovely view of Lake Worth.

It became a gilded cage with a willing prisoner. He would pass the days in a darkened library, television set flickering faintly in the corner. Or he would decide simply not to get up at all. When he did talk on the phone, his speech was often slurred. He sometimes had difficulty walking.

He said he was feeling fine. One of the body's quirks is that a strength can become a flaw. The body can learn to tolerate things great and small the nagging pain in a professional basketball placer's knee, thus enabling him to play despite injury, the smell of a hospital. But the body bronzes, coppers, pewters and much more the finest quality cast aluminum lighting in an unlimited choice of styles and finishes. I I I a eLJ TELEPHONE 585-0057 6800 S.

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