The UNMC Gay-Straight Alliance, a new student group, held its first event Jan. 30. It asked psychiatrist, alum and author Loren Olson, M.D., to be the headliner. Dr. Olson’s book is “Finally Out: Letting Go of Living Straight, A Psychiatrist’s Own Story.”

Dr. Olson, class of 1968, spoke Jan. 30 at the first event held by UNMC’s Gay Straight Alliance.

There was no gay-straight alliance when Loren Olson, M.D., was studying at the College of Medicine, class of 1968. At his 40^th reunion he asked his classmates: Had they known of anyone in school who had been gay, then? Had they heard of any gay bars in Omaha at that time? Anything? No, no and no.

But Dr. Olson was and is gay. He just didn’t know it, back then.

Wait a minute. Really? Seriously, how do you not know something like that?

Dr. Olson’s book is billed as “part personal memoir and part psychological treatise.”

It’s true, he knew he was different, growing up as a little boy in rural Nebraska in the forties and fifties, in a town where it seemed like everyone was the same. He wondered why he had to work so hard at “being a man” when it came so naturally to all the other boys. He always chalked it up to his father having died young; he didn’t have a male role model to teach him all that macho stuff – yeah, that’s it. Occasionally he would slip and do something “like a girl.”

“Being in a small town,” Dr. Olson said, “that was devastating to me.”

The people he grew up with were not homophobic, he said, but rather, “homo-naïve.” And so was he.

There were things he simply had no frame of reference for. Later, there were things he couldn’t allow to be true.

Besides, this was the age of McCarthyism. And even if, as a kid, you didn’t follow the news, you felt something in the air. There were things you did not want to be accused of.

This was when and where he grew up.

Dr. Olson posed with UNMC Gay Straight Alliance leaders. From left, Jim Medder, M.D., associate professor of family medicine; Anna Hulbert, M4; Dr. Olson; Rick Yang, M4; Jessica Boettcher, M4, from Des Moines University; Elizabeth Penner, M4; and Gary Beck, Ph.D., education and researcher coordinator in the department of pediatrics.

His marriage? “We both entered it in good faith,” Dr. Olson said, “with the idea we would be married forever.

“We both were pretty naïve. We thought it was as good as it got.”

And yet there was such pain … Dr. Olson would fantasize about his wife becoming an alcoholic, so he could walk out, and no one would blame him.

But his wife, his wonderful, loving wife (and after some rough years, again his friend), “She didn’t cooperate,” he said. He has to laugh about it now.

And so, like so many other self-identifying “straight” men, he found himself drawn toward encounters with men, all the while refusing to acknowledge the truth of his sexual orientation, even in his own mind. He had tendencies, he told himself. Quirks, maybe.

This is not uncommon among men in this situation, Dr. Olson said. Many live their lives in a kind of purgatory. They can’t help themselves. But they can’t face themselves. Sure, they’ll occasionally have sex with men. It doesn’t mean you’re gay!

But, “Secrets are like abscesses,” Dr. Olson said.

Former U.S. Sen. Larry Craig (“I am not gay. I never have been gay”) of airport-bathroom-scandal infamy is largely reviled within the LGBT community. But Dr. Olson feels only empathy.

“I could have been him,” Dr. Olson said.

Dr. Olson visited with students after his presentation.

But then he met someone. And kissed him. And then he knew.

He was 40.

Looking back, maybe he should have always known. But now, all of it came rushing out, there was no denying anymore. This is what he should have been feeling. This is who he was. This is what love is really like. “I knew then,” he said, “I couldn’t put it away.”

His family. His wife found something he had written (hoping to be caught?), and Dr. Olson didn’t deny it. Now they both knew. It was over.

His family …

He’d grown up without a father, and always told himself he’d make up for it by being the world’s greatest dad. Now, here he was getting a divorce. Here he was, leaving.

“That was very difficult,” he said, and swallowed.

Those were brokenhearted times for all involved.

At work, it trickled out as he went along. He made no grand announcement. Good grief, it was bad enough being divorced, where he worked. He felt like an outcast.

He moved to a bigger town, for more breathing room. This, being officially gay, now – it was new to him. How does it work? What does one do? At 40?

Someone had told him about a gay dads support group, and he’d gone. They all seemed like regular, All-American, neighbor-next-door, ordinary guys – just like him. It was liberating.

“I feel more like a man now that I’m gay than I ever did before,” he said.

Dr. Olson stressed the importance of respecting people’s honestly-held religious beliefs, and in showing understanding for the “homo-naive”: “Stories like ours, when told to other people, change minds,” he said.

At his new job, he had to take disciplinary action against someone he was supervising. The guy hinted he would out Dr. Olson if he did. So Dr. Olson took a deep breath, and fessed up first.

“Oh, that,” the hospital administrator said. “We knew that when we hired you.”

Free. At long last he was free.

He and Doug, a farmer (not the man he first kissed), have been together now for 26 years. “Mostly good,” Dr. Olson said. Just like anyone else.

His mother was deeply religious and afraid her son wouldn’t go to heaven. But she loved him. “She treated Doug like a son,” Dr. Olson said.

The first time they visited her at her house he and Doug decided they would stay in a hotel, so as not to make sleeping arrangements uncomfortable. That winter night, after they’d all stayed up late talking, he and Doug got up to leave. And his stepdad said, “You know, there’s no reason for you to go out on a cold night like this.”

And they never did again.

Dr. Olson’s wedding was just like anyone else’s. There was cake.

Not long after Iowa legalized same-sex marriages, they were driving, and Dr. Olson looked over. “You wanna?”

Doug, after a second: “S’pose.”

One of Dr. Olson’s daughters is very conservative, politically, religiously. He called her. Would they come?

Of course. Of course they would come.

What would she tell the kids?

She’d tell them that two people who loved each other were getting married.

“I have always underestimated my children,” Dr. Olson said.

When his granddaughter was told that Grandpa and Doug were getting married, her response was, “Who are they marrying?”

Well … each other.

Whaaat? “That’s weird.”

Then: “Will there be cake?”

There was. There was cake.

Ask John Schleicher, associate professor and head of special collections at the McGoogan Library of Medicine, what he’s got in the rare book room. And the answer is: “How many things do you want to see?”

Oh, he’s got stuff. A fourth edition (1730) of Optiks, written by Sir Isaac Newton. Yeah, that’s right – the guy of the apple-bonking incident fame.

A book from 1517, its binding sewn by hand, its illustrations of military surgery (there’s some dude getting his leg sawn off).

Yes, this guy is being treated via hacksaw. But don’t worry. They put a towel over his head, so he’ll be fine.

Medieval text from the 1300s, one of the works of Albertus Magnus. Fittingly, UNMC’s copy was hand-written by university scribes, not monastery ones. The style of script confirms it.

Look at the pictures in this one: “They’re kind of dressed like … they’ve got Christopher Columbus hats,” I said.

“They look like the Montagues and Capulets,” Schleicher said.

What penmanship!

It’s an impressive collection. Some of the best stuff was acquired in the 1920s, when a doctor would make an annual pilgrimage to Europe in search of antiquities to add to the university’s library. But it’s grown since then and continues to grow. Physicians have donated their collections. Schleicher attends a history of medicine (and rare books) conference each year, and when people see his name tag they still stop him and tell him their Dr. McGoogan tales.

In the library there are book covers made of velum – goat skin or sheep skin. Here’s one with an illustration of a guy who looks like he’s got some problems. He’s got crabs and scorpions and goats and cows and people crawling all over and seemingly inside (!) of his body.

In spite of — or perhaps in some cases because of — their age, many of these books are as beautiful as they’ve ever been.

“We have a translation of this,” Schleicher said. “They thought depending on when you were born, what month, the sign of the zodiac, you should or should not do different things that time of the year.”

Schleicher enjoys telling the stories behind some of the library’s most treasured items.

Let’s see. He says mine says when the moon is in Leo it’s a good time to start building a castle, to establish relationships with princes and to “conclude a marriage.”

To conclude one? Like to end one?

What does that mean? If you’re going to get divorced, do it around your birthday?

Anyone in ortho recognize this?

So, were a lot of things in these books way off, compared with what we know today?

“Not really,” Schleicher said. “Some things yes, some things no.”

A lot of what is found in these books was on the cutting edge. (Um … so to speak.)

Childbirth in the 1500s. She’s about eight minutes from the “I don’t care what it says on my birth plan, I want the epidural” stage.

A good portion of UNMC’s collection deals with obstetrics, thanks to the personal interests of a couple of its big donors, Dr. McGoogan, and Dr. Charles and Olga Moon.

The McGoogan Library has a copy of Eucharius Rösslin’s 1513 classic “Der Rosengarten,” a pregnancy and childbirth guide. It was revolutionary, as it was written by a medical doctor. It swept across Europe, and was published in several languages. It was the “What to Expect When You’re Expecting” of its day.

Apparently, this Isaac Newton guy was a pretty big deal.

Likewise, Madame du Coudray had similar success a couple centuries later. She dedicated herself to reducing infant mortality in rural France in the 1700s (outreach to an underserved population!), and even came up with the kind of simulation mannequin you might find in the Sorrell Center’s Sim Lab today. We’ve got her book, too.

And look at this: “Inside of it this says – I don’t know if we could ever prove this,” Schleicher says, “this is French for: ‘Library of Louis XVI.’ ”

An important text which describes the study of the possibility of vaccination against smallpox. Also — ewwwww.

Uh huh. Well, maybe. But the library did have an appraisal done in 1997, and at that time it was noted to be a $3-4 million collection. How many visitors come to see all this stuff?

“Not enough,” Schleicher said. So there you have it. Give them a call at 559-7094 to set up an appointment. Come see some pretty cool stuff.

Jan. 20, 1988, was the day the helicopter crashed at the med center. UNMC security officer John Ingraham had just gotten home. He received a page. He remembers, it was just after 4. An Associated Press report from the next day said it was just after 5.

When he got back to campus, the “ship” was still burning. It was still in flames.

“One of the rotors flew like 90 feet,” he said.

Luckily, everyone had gotten out OK.

It was a cold day. Such a cold day.

The helicopter was taking off to make room for another helicopter bringing someone in. It started to lift off, but couldn’t level itself. The cabin part got too high, almost vertical. The tail hit something. The pilot struggled for control.

The company that owned the chopper would later offer the initial theory that an ice crystal in the hydraulic system was the likely cause.

“In the movies when the helicopter hits it explodes in a big fireball,” Ingraham said. Not so. “It started to burn kind of small, but because it was jet fuel, it burned very hot.”

The pilot was bleeding from his head, but he got out. The flight nurse was stuck. An administrator rushed in, and cut the tangled, stuck seat belt with a knife. They wrestled something heavy off of the nurse’s foot. He hopped to safety.

Pilot and nurse were treated and released.

The Federal Aviation Administration and National Transportation Safety Board had to investigate the crash. But it would be a couple days before they could get there, Ingraham recalled.

Security had to stand sentinel over the crash site.

“We had to stay out there for two days, all night, to go guard it make sure nobody tried to make off with pieces or contaminate the scene,” Ingraham said.

They took turns sitting in a vehicle, to warm up.

They were freezing. Time had frozen. It seemed like the clock had stopped moving hours ago.

They looked out at the charred, scattered aircraft carcass.

“Cold,” Ingraham said. “It was just bitter, bitter cold.”