The Complete Works of Professor Louis E. Adams

People in this writing are notable since they have contributed to a historical record, such as physicians, scientists, researchers, philosophers, and other scholars, collectively referred to as " academics." People may also meet the essential criteria and be considered notably without their biographies being the subject of secondary sources.

Phase One is the people whom I met while serving in the U.S. Navy. That was when I was young and impressionable. The lessons learned from the Navy and the leaders formed the basis for many of today's operating principles and continue to inform me of the professional standards and core values.

Phase Two is the Peace Corps years. President Kennedy said three years earlier that: "Peace Corps is a service opportunity for motivated changemakers to immerse themselves in a community abroad, working side by side with local leaders to tackle the most pressing challenges of our generation." Morocco needed laboratory workers. We tried to meet that need with mixed results.

Phase Three is the years in Academia. Twenty-eight years were conducting applied medical research related to autoimmunity's diverse aspects: the mechanism of self-recognition, regulation of autoimmune responses, experimental autoimmune diseases, diagnostic autoantibody tests, and the epidemiology, pathophysiology, and treatment of autoimmune rheumatic diseases at the University of Cincinnati.

Cities such as Casablanca, Marrakech, and Tangier were only names that were occasionally visited, mentioned in the news, and frequently in the movies. Only then, any lasting association with these cities was in the context of a film setting such as Casablanca, or as part of the storyline in some book that frequently required a story of conspiracy and foreign intrigue.

As with most Americans, Morocco was a distant, remote, and vague area of the world (4). Many people who have never visited Morocco or who come to Morocco with the idealized version of what Casablanca was like, according to the 1943 movie by the same name, may be disappointed. Nevertheless, the reality is Casablanca at that time, as the portrayal in the film was merely a Hollywood construct and had very little to do with history or reality.

There is a need for clarification of facts vs. fiction (4).

Before I travel to any new place, I like to read up on the history of the country. For a quick geography lesson, Thailand is smack dab in the middle of Southeast Asia and bordered by four countries: Myanmar (Burma), Laos, Cambodia, and Malaysia. And because of its location, Thailand’s culture and history are heavily influenced by India, Japan, and China.Thailand’s tourism pushes the image that the country is the “land of smiles,” and this is mostly true. Thai people generally prefer harmony over open social conflict, so it’s rare to get into altercations on the streets, and I find the vendors and locals regularly offer up warm smiles and greetings.

This autobiography is not a story of a few great men and women, but ordinary men and women who struggled to survive during the Great Depression and World War II. Their stories are our version of the gossip-filled and wonder-working and sometimes doom-laden careers of god and goddesses of Homer. The book traces, through the Genesis of the Adams family and after that, both the immense changes that have occurred in the 20th and the start of the 21st Century but also the difference in our conception of greatness itself.

Professor Louis Adams grew up near Chillicothe, Ohio during the Great Depression and World War II. After graduation from Southeastern High School, he served in the U.S. Navy with his two brothers. Naval service during the 1960’s and the Cold War years took him and his family to Morocco, a country of many contrasts and at a time of new challenges. Culture shock was part of this new adventure. His medical duties were varied and included working with the Moroccan Ministry of Health conducting epidemiological studies, enteric diseases monitoring, and the training of Peace Corps Volunteers (PCVs) as laboratory technicians. 

The author returned to Morocco as the Director of two groups of PCV Lab Techs who were stationed in hospitals and clinics throughout the country to fill a void left by the exodus of French health care workers after Moroccan Independence in 1956. The overall success of the program was marginal due to many factors: limited number of well-trained medical technologists, demands for additional lab tests overwhelmed AB generalists, lab bench work too mundane, work lacked opulence, provided limited self-gratification, and impeded cross-culture exchange and social interaction, loyalty to work ethics was limited, and social revolution occurring in the 1960s accentuated the character flaws and immaturity of some PCVs. 

Cities like Tangier, Tetouan, and Marrakesh in the 1960’s provided adventure, deception, intrigue, mystery, and high-octane thrills that attracted expatriates, writers, poets, exotic travelers, and PCVs who got caught up in the drug scene.