MY PARKINSON’S DIARY
MY PARKINSON’S DIARY
THE HAMMERLOCK MIRACLE
Wednesday, January 14, 2015
December 10, 2014
When you see me walk up the steps with my arm tucked behind my back in a hammerlock, it is not an homage to Johnny Valentine, the great blonde bombshell pro wrestler of the 1960's who may have used it as a submission hold. No, rather I discovered the other day that it helps tremendously with my balance going up. I rarely have to so much as touch the railing these days which is a blessing indeed, particularly when you consider that before this, I had to more or less clamber my way up the staircase, praying every step of the way that I would not suffer a catastrophic fall.
I wonder what you think of this, my self-taught survival technique? Do you think it odd? Do you think me odd -- that I would somehow assert my ability to walk up the stairs unaided whereas two days ago, it felt as though I were taking my life in my hands every time I reeled up the passageway? I think I care what you think of me, yet at the same time, can only take that so far before leaving off with, Oh well. Should anyone ask, I'll just say I'm doing my JFK, that I saw a picture of him with his hand behind his back, pensively walking the halls of The White House with brother Bobby when all hell was threatening to break loose over the missile crisis in "Cuber."
That deliberate mispronunciation is yet another sign of how this piece finds its way toward unifying theme, the same way it might were I to rhapsodize about sitting on the swing on the front porch of our childhood home at 622 Meade with my brother Richard, counting cars in a game in which I had been unwise enough to choose the Desoto, but at least not a Nash or even worse Packard, or to turn my thoughts to the quality of pocket change in those days, the Mercury head dimes, Franklin half dollars, buffalo nickels, even the occasional Indian head penny. On one level this is about the pleasure of naming things, yet to an even deeper degree, it is an exercise in nostalgia.
One of the more modest joys of being married to Julie stems from how much her 70's childhood in tiny Deshler, Ohio mimics my life growing up two decades earlier in Saginaw, Michigan. In countless ways the parallels appear -- from Lawrence Welk on weekends to the Western Auto store where it seemed everyone got his or her first bike. I have no idea whether the Blue Laws that kept businesses closed and turned out families of Sunday drivers were still in effect in her day, but I have an implicit faith that Scott and Delores fired up whatever V-8 they were driving before cruising around town with the family, taking in some bare trees on a November afternoon in 1978, just as Jack and Doreen had done during the late 50's.
As you might guess, I'd give a lot to take one more Sunday drive with my family, though as it is I can content myself with remembering the last time I sat at the same table with them, at the reception following my brother's marriage to his second wife, at least a full decade after my parents had split during the week of the first moon landing. It seems to me that I understood what was happening, even then. Julie at the table with her family as they broke bread for the last time before encountering overwhelming tragedy -- the loss of both parents within roughly a year of each other -- is too much to contemplate, so for now at least, I think I will just walk up the staircase with my arm tucked behind me, giving thanks for the small mercy of a respite, however momentary or illusory, from one struggle facing me.
“Should anyone ask, I'll just say I'm doing my JFK, that I saw a picture of him with his hand behind his back, pensively walking the halls of The White House with brother Bobby when all hell was threatening to break loose over the missile crisis in ‘Cuber.’”