Early Days
    of  PHAs

  PHA Tales

  America&nbsp
    Attacked -&nbsp
    PHAs&nbsp
    Respond

  Future of 
    PHAs

  Task Force
    2010

  Watsonian

Cowboy - from Phil Talboy

In early 1984, I was working a "syphilis blitz" on an Apache Indian reservation in Arizona. During the course of an interview, I was given the name of a "Cowboy" as a possible source to the infection. A cowboy is an individual that works for the cattle barons of the reservation, branding, herding, driving, and rounding up cattle. I elicited from the patient that this "Cowboy" was in the hills for the past few months in a "cowboy camp" and only came to town once or twice a month. I also obtained information that this particular cowboy was a C-4 who took care of the other "Cowboy's" needs while isolated in the hills. It just so happened that on the same day my supervisor, Gerry Dunleavy and the State's Senior PHA, Lee King arrived on the reservation. Wanting to impress them both, I stressed the urgency of screening the entire encampment that day. Not wanting to curb the excitement of a new PHA, they both agreed. Upon Gerry's insistence, the three of us piled into his luggage filled two seat Fiat convertible. For the early part of that afternoon and into the evening, we chased the horse mounted Indian "Cowboys" over the open range on our mount named "Fiat". Once we caught up with a "Cowboy", we drew a tube of blood wherever we could, sitting on a fence, a rock, or "Fiat". Late that evening past dark, after traveling by a winding, pothole filled dirt road into the mountains we arrived at the cowboy camp to get bloods from those "Cowboy's" we had not captured on the range. For the next few hours there we sat drawing "Cowboy" bloods, under the stars by the light of the camp fire. Finally our day had ended, so we again mounted Fiat and began our long trek down the mountainside back into town. Bouncing over the bumpy gravel road, with me and the luggage flying every which direction, Lee King turned to me and stated, "Out of all the experiences you will have working for CDC as a PHA, it is times like these that will be cherished and never forgotten".

 Back to Tales from Today's PHAs