Pepperell Small: Valedictorian Has Highest & Lowest G.P.A.

    If Norman Rockwell were alive today, Pepperell, Massachusetts would be the place he'd hang his hat at the end of a long day of painting. Not being from, or raised in New England, it has taken me a fair while to understand what it means to be from New England. In truth, I still don't get it, and probably never will. People from New England are an add breed.  These days, I have come to think of Pepperell as a person. The Town can be mean, angry and depressed in the winter; always optimistic and upbeat in the spring; pensive and reflective in the fall; and fun, supportive, and carefree during summer months. But it's the people who really give Pepperell its meat and bones, its complexion.

   I am not unlike 99% of others with Parkinson's disease. I live a mixture of all 5 stages of Elisabeth Kübler- Ross in a single week. My companion, my caregiver, is not a person but a town, Pepperell. Here's what I mean.

    For the past 2 years I have lived a life closer to that of a Cistern monk than a well educated, articulate, and funny 62 year old white male. When a person can no longer bullshit others with humor and charm, then-surprise, surprise-you're left alone with a complete and total stranger for a roommate. Somewhere in my late 50s, I became acutely aware of just how unprepared and outright terrible a father I was becoming. Now, the Cisterns are a contemplative, monastic order who live in silence and communal isolation.  Well, the dear Lord has not hurt his knuckles knocking on my door. Or so I thought. 
 

   For the past couple of years, I've spent without cable, no TV, not even rabbit ears. That last bit is an odd mention, I agree, but when first diagnosed with PD, I treated myself to six thousand cable channels. Every day I would wait for the next symptom to appear, and decided that since I could no longer go out to the world, I would bring the world to me. And each day, after too much news, or too many movies, like a Roman aristocrat at the bathhouse, I wanted to vomit and start all over again. Uncountable hours I willingly turned over to Bill O'Riley; I became part of the drama with the Teutle family on “American Chopper,” dissected what was wrong with Kate and Jon and all those kids; “Dirty Jobs,” and “Shark Week” dialogue rolled off my tongue, rote-like. Sad, very sad, that I knew more about designing a Harley than I did what music and books caught my daughter's attention. While becoming a movie, writing, and TV expert, I was just waiting, and waiting more, for that next symptom to appear. All the while, my daughter was growing up without me.

    I knew one person, and not all that well, in the town of Pepperell, MA, (pop. 12,000). Then as Fate would have it, Life intervenes when you least expect it. I was in the shower one day, just a singing-a-way and having a great ole time. Turning off the water I squeegeed the excess water from me. Holding the make-shift rail I went to lift my right leg over the lip of the bathtub. Like a bad Elvis impersonation, my right leg began to shimmer and shake just you'd imagine the King's might have done on the Ed Sullivan show. “Well, that's odd, “ I recall thinking to myself. Never one to be to easily fooled, and noticing that I had another leg with which to try, I turned and attempted to lift my other one over the 2” high lip. Different leg but the same result. So here was my dilemma.

   I recalled reading an article about a man from Mexico who had been confined to his bed and bedroom for years. In the end, and 500 lbs later, he needed medical attention that could no longer be provided to him in his home. The man needed to get to a hospital. After backing up a flatbed truck, the fire department, with the assistance of some heavy equipment, cut a giant hole in the side of his bedroom. Extricating the poor man, there was a picture of him going down the interstate covered by a tarp and on his way to the hospital.

    Meanwhile back in my shower. Once again I tried the right leg again with no success. Then the left one again. Then the right, left, right-cha-cha-cha! No matter how hard I tried to get that man and the flatbed truck out of my mind, all I could see is the headline of the local newspaper: “Local Man, Shakin' All Over, Lifted to Safety.” Finally, in an act of desperation it occurred to me that there was a way out of this potentially embarrassing situation. Kneeling, I pulled myself, python-like, over the lip of the bathtub and onto the safety of the floor. I remained there, on my butt, for what seemed like the longest time. Then , mustering the courage, I stood. First one tentative step and, hold it. Then the next foot and, once again, hold it. Steady as she goes there, Sean. Confidence regained, I practically ran out of the bathroom and dove onto the safety of my couch. Shades of the fire department using a hook & ladder to pull me through my window were quickly erased. True story.

    For days afterward, people of this Town, without ever knowing specifically what, knew something was acutely wrong with me.Through a series of phone calls and knocks at my front door, the "face" of Pepperell was checking in with me to be sure I was OK. First, there was the sweetest person in the world, Tracy, owner of the Pepperell Family Pharmacy. Tracy looks and acts exactly like you'd expect a Norman Rockwell grandmother to look and act. When I first moved to Pepperell, on her own, she helped me with my Parkinson medications until my insurance coverage was straightened out. Tracy is a modern day, small-town saint, and has followed in the footsteps of her mentor, John M., Sr. Between the two of them over the last 30 years, they and their pharmacies have anonymously helped more people, and wanted less credit, than I have ever been exposed, ever. Small saints, indeed, in an ever more frightening and violent world.

Al S., was the manager of my apartment building, but also has his business office located here. Al pointed out where to find this and that around here, but, in the following months, became my small-town guide. Now the thing that was anathema to me before, but I have grown to respect now, is that Al, in essence, has been doing the same job, with the same people for the last 25 to thirty years. One foot in front of the other, day in and day out, through humid summers and record-breaking winters. Quietly raising a family with all the challenges and victories that go along with that endeavor. Here is my point: At 68, when most people are retired, Al and his partner (in his 70s), still put in a day's work. He would not-and could not-have it another way. It isn't the job that defines Al, but rather the routine that gives him, to this day, structure great meaning to his days. Amazing. Their number, it seems, is legion in Pepperell.

    Al, like most people in Pepperell, is deeply spiritual, but would never flaunt religion in your face. And they all share a common denominator, namely, these are people who have found a way to love what they do. They don't work for a living, but receive life out of working. People like Al, Tracy, Deb at the Lawrence Library, or Susan at the Senior Center, exist everywhere in this world. But they never really 'appear' in sprawling, metropolitan, hip, social, ladder-climbing developments of 2015. Here in Peperell people like them bubble to the surface, help, listen, vent, or advise, and then retreat once again to the anonymity Pepperell affords them, to put one foot in front of the other again.

    Pepperell and its inhabitants have absorbed my Parkinson's and me in a way like no other place I've lived. I can walk to nearly everything: grocery shopping, doctor appointments, pharmacy, and the Catholic church, dry cleaner, restaurant. Ah, but there is no movie theater-maybe someday. Last Sunday I was speaking to a friend, a relative by marriage, Cathy Heywood, who still lives in the town I was born and raised, San Benardino, California .“A guy was shot at the gas station at 40^th and Mountain Ave. That's too close,” she aptly pointed out. There is no crime, to speak of, in Pepperell, not compared to SoCal, at least.

    Finally, I attend Mass almost every morning. The Irish have a saying, “Sin at night and pray the rosary in the morning”. You get the idea. It isn't that I go and pray for anything, really. It is simply that the inside of the church is a familiar place to me, and a great space to begin my day. It helps me remember what is and what isn't important in this life. That's all. I know what a privilege it is to start my day like that. By noon most days I have forgotten what it is that I was remembering that morning. But, it helps me to try and make “something” out of my Parkinson's disease. And the Catholic church is peppered with more small town saints, but they'd never let on. That is simply the way they want it.

   No, Pepperell would never register on the Southern California "cool" meter. The people you see on daytime TV, almost always wrinkle-free, tanned, 30-40-somethings who believe that "character" is a small acting role for someone with a face made for radio. No, if there is such a thing as "spiritual evolution," then the petri dish for that slow growth toward God is right here, right now, in Pepperell. Thank God for that fact.

    

“There's no such thing as bad weather-just the wrong clothes.”

    That's an Irish saying. When all you have is pretty much bad weather 9 months of the year, you finally run out of things to blame for a lingering, shitty disposition. I always felt more at home in Dublin, Ireland than Redondo Beach, California. That saying is really another reminder of what John Wooden, the legendary UCLA basketball coach, used to drill into his players: “Failing to prepare is really preparing to fail”. So, how exactly, does a person prepare to have Parkinson's?

    That, I would teach my high school English classes, is a redundant question, there is no answer. The bone chilling, smack-you-n-the-face and bring you to your knees truth is, you don't. I could end this here and see how people feel now about this Blog, but there is always more to any story. So I turn to one of the masters of maladjustment, George Bernard Shaw, the Irish playwright and 1925 Nobel Prize for Literature winner. He once proudly proclaimed: “My reputation grows with every failure.” And just like Parkinson research, or my living happily with this disease is, initially and repeatedly, all based on failure. Sorry, but it's true, and my failures seem to hit everyone's 11 PM news coverage. 

   “Oh now that's some funny stuff there, Sean!” “SHUT-UP!” Says I “And I'm out of here,” says you. Then I suggest telling you the story of the "3-Change of Clothes in 20 Minutes," and you decide to linger for a moment but insist that the story had better be short. Suspiciously, we shake on it. Talk about pressure!

   Exactly 11 days ago a friends of mine, Eve, another writer, stopped by to see how I was doing. She's married to a very cool man, and they have 3 “someday-cool-maybe” children. Now, here it is important to mention that Parkinson medications are scheduled for a reason. Researches and doctors didn't get those instructions: Take 4 times a day, from a Ouija board in the middle of the night. When soft-as-a-grape PD people, like me, don't take them on that schedule, well, bad things tend to happen. I had forgotten mine and, (OK, cut my hair and call me stupid) literally just swallowed the final one  moments before Eve arrived.

   Being the gracious host I poured her a diet Coke and myself a Classic Coke. I knew my balance was off but, male pride being what it is, there was no way I was going to forewarn her. I do, however, point out that “I'm a little shaky today.” We sit, exchange some pleasantries, and I go to take a sip of my Classic. BOOM! Classic Coke in my lap, #1. We both laugh because, my tremor was so jerky and pronounced, I thought I was going to embed the glass in the ceiling above me. I change. New T-shirt, jockey briefs, Levis and socks. I return and pour new Cokes.

 I pick mine up and sure-as-sugar, BOOM! Classic Coke #2 in my hair and all down the front of me. Hand over heart and eyes to Heaven, my friend asks to use the restroom because we were laughing so hard she thought she might need a change of clothing, too. I go and locate some dry duds, return and still thirsty, pour myself one more. No secret here. You see it coming, but I didn't. Talk about hubris! First sip I bend low and suck some juice from the top. Feeling in control, it was that second sip that Coke found a home all over me-even into my socks-and into my keyboard and monitor. My first thought was about that silly proverb regarding a bad workman who always blames his tools. The glass was just too thick at the base.

   It is all just to stupid not to laugh. My writing area is a mess, and I half expected a knock at the door and a couple of men in those containment suits to come in and swab everything down. Eve helps me remove all the liquid sugar from everything and, exhausted, she goes home to her cool husband and children. That night while lying in bed I have to conclude, sadly, it was just me still being me, and Parkinson's doing what it does best, namely, being Parkinson's disease. I still go kicking and screaming into this disease. There was no villain, no bad weather. I had, as John Wooden would claim, prepared to fail, and I was amply rewarded well for my efforts.

   I wish I could end this with some funny quip about Eve coming to my door the next day wearing one of those huge, black, plastic bags, but that simply isn't the way it happened. No, the truth is that I am still finding small clumps of crystallized sugar under my keyboard; there are still areas of  my writing chair that I stick to no matter how much Windex I use; and I still resist using a pill timer or one of those 7 day pill holders. I just try and dress better for inclement weather these days. Sean being Sean and Parkinson's being Parkinson's.

The Start of the Beginning-My Journey with Parkinson's

  This past June was the 5th (anniversary isn't really the correct word) of me apparently wanting to be More Like Mike (J. Fox), and Muhammad, and Linda, ah, but, Robin never stayed around long enough to find out where the full “Parkinson's E Ticket” took him. Parkinson's is the Ebola of of movement disorders, as it seems to change and morph direction, even in a single person with Parkinson's disease. My PD started with tremors, and then there was the temporary right side paralysis. Imagine putting your right hand in your pocket and falling forward. Boom! My pelvis, 9 ribs, right clavicle, now a new left hip, and umpteen stitches from the neck up-all painfully recorded before I was diagnosed. I now have a million funny stories that, in reality, were not so funny when I was attempting to figure out what was happening to my body. It's still like adolescence, puberty, all over again at 62.

    There was learning how and when not to put in contact lenses; when not to shave (think of the original “Airplane” and the guy in the bathroom). And then there are the jokes. How do you make a cobra into a rattlesnake? Give it to Sean on a bad day. Where is a place that's constantly snowing? Sean's snow-globe. These days, like a petulant child, my left side has a mind of its own. I'll be dipped in sugar if, months after that “latest” symptom appears, my mind and body tell me things are all honky-Dorie again. And I believe it!

    But there is an upside, too: I have never been more spiritual and less afraid, read more great writers and watched less TV; write better and more often and now rarely rely on on texting; run marathons no longer, but these days I bike more & see more new things; listen more and talk less; forgot how to make a living, but discovered how to make a life; weeded out those to whom I bring pain, and these days marvel at the sprouting of hope and optimism in me; no longer work to impress the word, but now work each day to appear on the radar screen of just one. My life, either as an  English teacher or Dean of Students, Jesuit, Dah, Dada, Dad, Ex-husband, Ex-boyfriend, writer, grateful friend and now former well-traveled Dude, seems to have been a life based on the pursuit of excitement, fun, travel, and the life-long belief in my entitlement. Now, with Parkinson's and a beautiful daughter, it is a life based on acceptance that I was far more lucky than entitled.

    There certainly is no denying that I have had several lifetimes of incredible success stories, but there are also many more tales of my misadventures. Although I have done many things, none, it seems, have I done particularly well. These days Parkinson's disease and medications call the shots, and, I have to admit, there is a sense of relief in me. Oddly enough, I am on a path not to happiness, but simply the day-in-and-day-out pursuit of being a better person. Something I never set out to accomplish, but now something I truly hope I will do exceptionally well.  It is for my daughter that I continue to journal, because I believe a history of who I became is a far better barometer of "Sean James McGinty" than who I was. It is a gift given to her, but not yet received.

    Finally, I have learned that “Family” is infinitely more important than health. Parkinson's has certainly thrown me a late-in-life curve ball. However, like Life, the game of baseball is one of constant adjustment. Batter to pitcher, pitcher to batter, defensive shifts, and offensive strategies. The game is slow, requires patience, and, because of its history, has withstood mistakes and errors along the way-just like me.  I am growing to appreciate Parkinson's disease in the same manner I love baseball. People don't die from PD, and players do not die from baseball. Both, I have come to understand, make each day unpredictable but certainly more interesting. And please God I never forget: "The only people I should ever try and get even with-are those that helped me along the way!"

Sean James McGinty