A Walk to Remember
by Bud Focht

Hi, my name is Bud, and I am taking my wife Terry home for a walk.

In 2005 Jon Bon Jovi asked “Who says you can’t go home?” on his Have a Nice Day album.

Well Jon, it was Thomas Wolfe, who wrote the novel You Can’t Go Home Again almost 100 years ago about a fledging author who makes references to his small hometown in a book that has national success, but the hometown folks don’t like the way they were portrayed and threaten to kill him.

That sounds like a pretty good reason to me not to go home again.

Like Thomas Wolfe, I’m afraid I used to say that to Terry too, when my work schedule did not allow us to visit her small hometown as often as she would like.

John and Paul, not the disciples (perhaps prophets though) but the great Lennon and McCartney, sang on the Let it Be album “You and I have memories, longer than the road that stretches out ahead…We’re on our way home, We’re going home” in the song Two of Us.

Long before MTV, before there were such things as music videos, the Beatles videotaped themselves performing Two of Us at Apple Studios. The clip was part of the Let it Be film, and was also shown on the Ed Sullivan Show, the final time the Beatles appeared on that famous variety show.

The two of us, Terry and I, have great memories of the 36 years we’ve known each other. Since her Early Onset Alzheimer’s Disease has begun taking its toll, however, the more recent memories seem dim and distant. Sometimes nonexistent.

But the old ones are still there.

When we first began dating in the 1970s Terry was a standout tennis player. In addition to playing first singles on her college team, she won her local tennis tournament every summer. It got to the point where the women’s tournament was no longer a challenge for her so she played in the men’s tournament, and even won that one year.

The local park where she won all of those tennis trophies, Slater Park in Pawtucket, RI, is hosting a Walk to End Alzheimer’s September 28 and I am taking Terry home to walk in it.

Terry and I enjoy taking long walks, whether on the boardwalk down the shore, on the Delaware Canal tow path not far from our home or just around our neighborhood. Next weekend’s walk will be a bit different, I feel. Full of emotions.

Terry and I have traveled to her childhood home in Rhode Island every summer since we got married, when I took her 250 miles away to live. Her mother and half of her siblings still live in the New England area. This past year, since Terry’s diagnosis, I think we set an all-time PR (personal record) for visits to New England.

We even made a few ‘day trips’ to RI. Nine hours round trip in the car for six hours spent with her family. In the past I would have never done that.  But now it seems well worth it. Besides, Terry and I enjoy traveling together. She gets to listen to music, which is becoming more and more important, and we get to spend time together. Even if it is spent going 60 miles per hour.

Terry was also on her college track & field team. She and I would run five miles together during my lunch hour most days when we were dating. One of the fond memories we have of those runs is that she never did learn how to spit properly. I grew up a baseball player. If there was one thing I could do was spit. But not Terry. You never see tennis players spitting, but runners need to spit every once in a while. Terry would either wear it or get it on me half the time. True love.

We no longer run, but we do walk. The Walk to End Alzheimer’s is a three mile walk. No problem. It will bring back pleasant memories walking though the nice park, especially around the old tennis courts. Terry and I used to ‘hit’ on those courts. We never played a match, we just hit back and forth. I could never give her a game. Terry is 5’2”, 100 pounds, so she didn’t exactly overpower me with her shots, but you could put a handkerchief anyway on the court and she could put the ball right on it, with a serve, forehand or backhand.

I was a decent intramural tennis player in college and even played in an adult men’s doubles league back in the 1980s, but I was never close to being in Terry’s league.

Once I signed Terry and myself up for the Walk, I started receiving e-mails and a package in the mail about how to raise funds for the cause. Ways to gain sponsorship. Ways to recruit walkers and sponsors.

To be honest, that was not my intent. I realize it is a great cause, but the only reason why I donated a few hundred dollars was so Terry and I could walk in her hometown, in the park where she used to be the top dog.

Back in the late 1970s, tennis was big, really big. When Bjorn Borg and Chris Evert ruled the courts.  Unlike now, where courts are overgrown with grass growing through the cracks, neighborhood courts were always full in the ‘70s. You actually had to go to the courts and wait for an open court to play.

And at the Slater Park courts, everyone knew Terry, or at least knew who she was. She not only was the queen of the court, but her humble, shy personality along with her infectious smile made her a fan favorite. Guys loved to play tennis with her because she could hold her own with them. Women loved to play with her to see if they could knock her off, like the local gunslinger.  They never could.

That is why I signed Terry up for this walk, to go back to her old stomping grounds, where she stomped on all comers on the tennis court.

But then I started thinking about this as a fundraiser, and I am reminded of the recent ice bucket challenge.

Back in late July my son sent me a video of himself dumping a bucket of ice water (mostly ice cubes) on himself and challenging his old college suitemates and fellow triathletes to do the same. I thought it was just another outrageous thing he was doing, like the time in college when he ate, despite having a stuffed nose due to a cold, a spoonful of cinnamon in front of an entire college cafeteria, causing crying girls to call 911 in a panic when he started turning blue.

Then in August I saw everyone around the nation getting ice water dumped on them. It raised a shit load of money for ALS.

But it got me thinking.  Did any of these people who did this actually know anyone who is suffering from that horrible disease? Or did they do it because it was fashionable?

Once a year I used to give a spiel for the United Way at my department meetings. I would tell my colleagues that there are many great charities to give to, but unlike some, where your donation could go toward a nice desk for the corporation’s national headquarters, funds given to the United Way go directly to organizations right in your own hometown.

Of all those ice water-soaked people, I wonder how many of them know someone afflicted with Alzheimer’s. A grandparent, an aunt or uncle, a parent?  Maybe even a spouse?

I would bet money that more people know someone with Alzheimer’s than with Lou Gehrig’s disease.

But fundraising for Alzheimer’s is not fashionable right now. Despite the fact that Alzheimer’s disease is the only cause of death among the top 10 in America without a way to prevent, cure or even slow its progression.

Alzheimer’s is the sixth leading cause of death in America. SIXTH! The top five are heart disease, cancer, chronic lower respiratory diseases, stroke and accidents. I don’t see ALS in there. ALS is not even in the top 10.

But it is in fashion.

Terry and I will be in fashion later this month, when we don our Walk to End Alzheimer’s tee shirts at Slater Park.

The next time you are choosing a cause to donate to, remember Alzheimer’s. It may help a loved one remember you.

Until next time, “We’re going home” for a walk to remember.

Bud

                                                   Terry circa 1978