Thirty years ago my first sure symptom of Parkinson's became evident. I had
purchased a very misused 1966 Pontiac Tempest "6" 2 door hardtop for $75.00
in October of 1971. It was only five years old and had gone less than 40,000
miles, but very few if any oil changes and sitting parked for several months
with a window partly open next to salt water had taken it's toll. During the
second week in November 1971, I rebuilt the engine in my back yard and did
some body work. I had always been very right handed. While putting the
engine back together I discovered that in certain positions I could not put
a nut on a bolt with my right hand, but I could with my left. It seemed odd
at the time, but I felt I had nothing to worry about. It was about a week
before my 39th birthday.

Several months later I decided to teach my high school student son how to
bowl. At one time I had been a fairly good bowler. I bowled for the Tokheim
Twirlers [a Fort Wayne, Indiana team composed mostly of employees of Tokheim
Corporation, a manufacturer of gasoline pumps for automobile service
stations]. I also bowled in a church league in Memphis. I used to 'throw a
pretty good ball.' Bowled with right arm with reverse English. The ball
would approach the left gutter, then hook right, and come into the pins
between pin 2 and pin 1. When I tried to show him how I threw the ball, I
found that I could not time the release. The ball usually went into the left
gutter. I bowled three games, breaking 100 only once. To add insult to
injury, son's first game was over 150. He bowled two more games. One was
about 165 and the other about 225. He then asked what else one did when
bowling. He said he thought it was a silly game. I still didn't worry.

I used to be a good whistler. I was an admirer of Elmo Tanner, the blind
whistler with Ted Weems' orchestra. His rendition of Heartaches is still one
of my favorites. Daughter played the flute, and I enjoyed whistling along
with my favorite flautist. I found whistling more and more difficult and
less fun than it was before. My tonal range was shrinking. I was busy
getting my Ph.D. dissertation written, and whistling is not an essential
part of life. I still did not worry.

In the early 1970's I was making underwriting and safety inspections in
businesses for several insurance companies. OSHA was new and most businesses
were very glad to have me come through their plants before OSHA. Part of my
reports involved making maps of the buildings, etc. I noticed that my hand
drawn maps were getting worse. I made many of the measurements by walking
and counting my number of steps. I got a Roll-A-Tape when I found that the
length my stride was less consistent. My dissertation was about finished,
and I was going back into teaching. I did not worry.

In the early to mid 1970s America was struggling with air pollution [lead
emissions in automobile exhaust was the big enemy] and a shortage of
petroleum products. Leaded gasolines were disappearing, and all of the new
gasoline powered cars the lean burn engines designed to get better gas
mileage on unleaded gasoline. Various new octane raising additives were
added to our gasoline to replace the dangerous tetraethyl lead. One popular
additive is meta xylene. I found the new smell of automobile exhaust to be
extremely noxious. In 1974-1975 I was pleasantly surprised when the
automobile engineers and/or the petroleum engineers got the stink out of the
exhaust from lean burn engines using unleaded gasoline. I commented on this
to several friends and wondered why the oil companies did not brag about the
improvement. I was told there were no improvements. I was losing some of my
sense of smell. It was an improvement to my quality of life, so, why worry?

In the early 1980s my handwriting deteriorated. In my lectures I stressed
problem solving, and I used a blackboard. I found that to make my writing
legible I needed to use both hands to handle the chalk. I worried. I found
it harder and harder to keep my lectures lively. I worried. I always wrote
notes to the students when I graded their papers. I found it more and more
difficult to write those notes, particularly in limited space. I was
worried.

 I began making tests which the students would have to take online. I was
ahead of my time on this. I gave weekly online tests where the students
would log on to the university computer and get a "welcome" followed by a
listing of tests taken previously, the grades on those tests, and cumulative
grade average and rank in class. It would then tell them what general area
their next test would cover and ask if they wished to take the test now. A
"yes" put them into twenty multiple choice questions which come up in random
order. A student could answer or put the question back to answer later.
There were always five choices. If a wrong answer is given, the screen would
tell them the answer is wrong and probably why the wrong answer was chosen.
It will then repeat the question until the right answer is given. With a
right answer the screen will tell the student he is right, give an extra bit
of information to reinforce the answer to the question, and give the
percentage of correct first try answers. At the end of the twenty multiple
choice questions, an essay question appears, and they answer at the
keyboard. The computer creates a file name to save the test answers. The
file name contains the student name, which test was taken, what the grade
was for multiple choice, and a dummy space where I can add the grade for the
essay. I never figured a way to have the computer grade an essay question.
When I open a student's test and print it, I get a statement saying when the
test was taken, how long the test took, in what order questions were
answered, which questions were answered incorrectly, and the essay answer.
The essay is printed double spaced on 18" paper, so there is plenty of room
for me to make remarks. I can also insert remarks into the students' essay
answer from the keyboard. I thought it was a good system, particularly for
fifteen years ago. I wrote in DEC BASIC and compiled. I could write the
tests on my Radio Shack Model 1 computer and upload them to the university
computer with my 300 baud modem. Most students were afraid of computers back
then.
Looking back, I am surprised at what I did to work around my yet undiagnosed
problem.
I knew something was wrong. I tried several doctors, including neurologists,
but got nowhere except worse for a considerable number of years.  I was
worried!

Diagnosis finally came on St. Valentine's day, 1991.

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