Mike was the physical therapist and his wife Betty was the office manager. Both were alert, informed and they were a good team. Miguel Avelino Sulsona arrived in the U.S.A. from Honduras at age thirteen, learned to speak English, graduated high school. Then he married the pretty, redheaded Anglo, Betty. Betty had graduated high school with honors. She worked as a waitress; he became a Navy corpsman. After leaving the Navy Mike learned to be a carpenter building houses for a developer. He won a scholarship to U.S.C. School of Physical Therapy and graduated with good grades. He worked his first year at the Long Beach Veterans hospital and was trained to perform orthopedic therapy. Then he worked for a group of orthopedic surgeons for a year. When he learned a Dr. Johnson was building a new hospital in the city of Westminster, Mike bought a lot across the street from the hospital and built a private physical therapy clinic. He also built a beautiful home in Garden Grove for Betty and their three children. He accomplished all these things with Betty’s help.
Betty was an excellent hostess, business manager, and adept at taking care of details. Mike was a scholar and charmer who enjoyed his work and public relations like taking doctors out to lunch or taking them water skiing in his boat. A group of doctors and businessmen came to play poker at his home every week. Mike drummed up business, and Betty collected from the insurance companies. The office, equipment and four treatment rooms were kept clean by everyone on the staff. Two books on Mike's desk were always open with words underlined. One book was a dictionary, the other an anatomy book with pictures of bones, nerves and muscles of the human body. Mike was good at anatomy, carpentry, artistic endeavors and everything else that interested him. The doctors he met said he would have made a fine surgeon.
Mike had a great sense of humor and loved to talk. People liked him because he was intelligent and full of fun. He mastered two languages and was able to create oil paintings, design buildings, sing, dance, play instruments, or clean out the toilet. He was good at everything he set his mind to. He bragged saying his balding head gave him more sexuality. He was seriously funny.
When I went to work for Mike and Betty they trusted me to do my best for the business. My first week, they bought me a tailor made skin-diver wet suit. They knew I couldn't afford to buy it for myself. I worked long hours and often treated up to eighteen patients a day. Mike began spending more time studying, doing public relations, and building a big cabin cruiser boat in his back yard. On weekends we occasionally went skin diving together at the north end of Catalina Island. We crossed the twenty five mile channel in Mike's twenty foot boat. It had a cabin that kept us dry if the water was calm. With a cross wind we got wet from the spray blowing into our faces on deck. We almost always saw whales and porpoises playing in the water as we sped across the channel.
Off Catalina, the rocky bottom is like the side of a mountain and it drops off to deep blue water close to shore. In and around the kelp on a clear water day, there is no place on earth more beautiful. We used SCUBA gear, but I preferred free diving using a snorkel. We usually saw many pretty colored rock and kelp fish, and occasionally deep water fish like bonito would inspect us by swimming in circles around us. We played with small leopard sharks by grabbing their tails, and sometimes we came face to face with sea lions. This was frightening because we suspected they might bite us. We almost always took abalone, fish, and lobster, cooking them over a bonfire on the beach. Lobster are migratory and were not always found when we searched for them under the reefs. Mike loved to feed the moray eels by hand, then tell about it as he imitated the facial expressions of the eel. Once Mike tried to pull an old giant lobster out of a reef cave. The bug was so old it was white, and so strong, it pulled Mike into the cave then got away from him. Mike said it weighed thirty pounds. Mike made me laugh easily. He was so funny acting out his stories.
At night we slept under the stars, and Mike would lie in his sleeping bag pointing out stars and constellations important to navigation. He was an authority on almost everything but was especially informative about love and sex. Sometimes during his monologue about sex, he would look down inside his pants or bathing suit and talk to his body as if it were able to answer. He said, "I know you're little, but I love you just the same.", or, "I'm not so big, but my wife says I have the cutest way of getting on and off."
One Saturday we arrived at a tiny Catalina cove, and only one other party of divers set up camp on the beach. I was lying on a towel when a tall man with thick hair turning gray stood over me asking, "I wonder if I might trouble you for a cigarette? My friends went off and left me here and my smokes are in the boat with them." The deep friendly voice came from Lee Marvin who later caused the word palimony to be an American word. I had seen him in small movie rolls, and he was presently starring on a television series as a Chicago detective. Lighting his cigarette, he sat on the sand to visit. After small talk about him learning to spear fish underwater, I butted into his business saying, "You are wasting your time acting on the T.V. The part you play is too simple for a man of your talent. You should get rolls like Edward G. Robinson played."
"The show I’m on now doesn’t give us time to act. We read the lines without using any effort to perfect the acting. I don’t mind. I do it for the money. But in movies, do you mean I should play the heavy?”
"Yes, you should play interesting parts. Don’t take nice guy parts. Be mean and not too trustworthy. Make the women think you are dangerous. Be a good liar. Then you will be recognized as a great movie star." I complimented his performance as the motor cycle gang leader acting with Marlon Brando in THE WILD ONE'S. Lee Marvin looked me in the eye as if he were reading my thoughts and answered slowly, "Maybe you are right."
The next day I borrowed a cigarette from Lee Marvin just for an excuse to talk. Recently an airline pilot told me Lee always stuck his head into the cockpit when boarding the passenger plane to or from Phoenix. "He was always courteous and friendly, and he let us know he was flying with us."
Back at the clinic, every two weeks Mike gave me a lecture and a raise in pay. Almost every time, Mike told me to use light hands during massage. I mistakenly felt I was being lazy if I weren't using all my strength. Most of the patients felt they were getting their money's worth from me, but a few complained to their doctor about my strong hands. Mike saved up complaints until it was time for my critique and lectured me on the last day of the week after work in his private office. I started my weekend dejected or angry at Betty for telling Mike things I had done wrong. One thing she complained of was my leaning on the walls with oil on my hands. The oil was on my hands after giving a massage. I had to wash the oil off the walls. I never stayed mad at Betty or Mike, and each lecture brought me a pay raise.
George was a tall Physical Therapist who worked with us. He was also a skin diver. Once we were driving through Tijuana on our way to dive at Punta Banda below Ensenada. George pointed to a car carrying a man, woman, and several children, all Mexicans. He said, "Look at those Mexicans, I bet they're not married."
Poor George had been brought up to be prejudiced. George had never heard of actors like Jack Benny because as a kid in Texas, he was allowed to listen only to news programs on the radio. George became a missionary after leaving Westminster. As a missionary in a foreign land, while standing on his roof, he leaned over the edge to pick an avocado, fell, broke his neck and died.
I treated many cervical sprains and strains, and it was rewarding to see the clients get well. On the first treatment some had a typical unpleasant body odor caused by pain. They walked and moved not with grace but with a stiff awkwardness. They acted unhappy, nervous, and perspired. Their clothes were sloppy, and the women wore no makeup, earrings, or anything to look better. Their hair was unkempt. Soon, with regular treatments, they started feeling better, smelling better, smiling better, and dressing up so they looked nice. Then I felt like being a physical therapist was worth while, and I gained confidence.
Mike's wife Betty managed a rock and roll band called THE SPATS with her teenage son playing drums. She organized a big fan club with students from many high schools. California radio stations played their records as the fans requested. They became popular in Southern California playing live on the same stages with Sonny and Cher, The Beach Boys, The Righteous Brothers, and others who made it big. The band broke up because Mike Jr. was drafted into the service. Betty could have made THE SPATS famous if time and Vietnam had allowed.
Mike and Betty helped to finance and produce a horror movie. They acted as extras. In one scene a body is thrown into a tank of piranha fish that really tear into the meat. A pig was used to make the scene realistic. Elderly John Carradine was one of the actors. Someone ran off with the money and the film was not completed. Eventually, I saw the film on T.V. but it was poorly edited and didn't make sense.
Mike was a great teacher. I learned plenty from him and still copy Mike Sulsona who was a very good physical therapist and skin diver.