You can do more than you think you can

ABOVE: Homage to Sylvain Chomet

Alzheimer's is the forgetting disease, but there is something that Parkinson's keeps making me lose track of: The fact that I don't have to quit doing what I enjoy because of PD. It's true that lots of my old skills don't measure up to their former levels, But as G.K Chesterton said, "Anything worth doing is worth doing badly." This was a defense of amateurism, but by all that is shaky, it also applies to living with PD.

I love riding my bike, I used to do a regular 22 mile round trip commute on our wonderful network of Anchorage bike trails. When I was diagnosed with Parkinson's,I was especially glum about the prospect of losing my ability to balance. No balance, no bike. I kept at it for awhile, then had to sit out most of a rainy season. When the next season rolled around I talked myself into the idea that I couldn't ride anymore.

I was working at home one day a little while after I reached this dispiriting conclusion. My son had driven to school and Pam had taken the Jeep to work. The phone rang, and when I picked up, I was told by the head of security at my son's high school that we had "A Situation" with his car. She explained that a roving security guard had peered into our Subaru and spotted a weapon. Said guard had the car staked out and could not leave until I dealt with the situation.

Calling me to let the guard return to "roving" mode was actually plan "B". The original idea was to jerk my son out of the middle of his AP economics test and have him retrieve the forbidden implement of destruction. Sanity prevailed, in the form of an alert assistant principal who knew that this kid would not be a threat to the school if he had a bazooka in the car. (Come to think of it, the car itself was a bigger threat, but he can explain that to you himself here)

Which was how I ended up telling an extremely unhappy head of security that, having no car, I would walk right up and take care of things, but since I had Parkinson's Disease, it would be about 45 minutes. This naturally left her delirious with happiness. At least I think it was happiness.

I trudged into the gloom of the garage to put on my shoes and the dull gleam of the gold paint on a friend's road bike caught my eye. It seemed worth a shot. It was.

I rode uphill all the way to the school and confiscated the weapon. I know you've been wondering just what it was. Machete? Switchblade? Gravity knife? Nope. It was a tiny folding saw with a 6-inch blade and a bright yellow handle that my dad had given us in case we broke down in the middle of a forest and had to hack it down to get back to civilization, or, if we were feeling truly ambitious, use it to start a whole new civilization. Which seems like a better idea all the time.

My job done, I signed a few autographs kissed a few babies, rescued a treed cat and rode home, delirious with happiness. I was back on a bike.