This will appear on the op-ed page of the Arizona Daily Star tomorrow morning.

                Bob Dolezal

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Date: Thu, 25 Feb 1999 07:08:16 -0700
To: [log in to unmask] (robert l dolezal)
From: Jim Kiser <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: Re: You just have to keep trying
Mime-Version: 1.0

Bob,

A sad, but ultimately very happy story.

We will run it tomorrow.

Thanks very much.

jim


At 03:18 PM 2/24/99 -0700, you wrote:
>At about 9:30, Tuesday morning, my  phone rang.  It was Cynthia Holmes, the
>coordinator for our Arizona American Parkinson's Disease Association
>Chapter.
>
>"I have an unusual request," she began.  I heard her inhale.  "How would
>you like to sit on the dais with President Clinton this Thursday, and give
>a two minute talk before the President delivers his address?"
>
>It was my turn to gasp.  The President was coming to Tucson to push his
>Medicare program, and I was being asked to participate.  And, it turned
>out, in a big way.
>
>"You would talk about your problems with Parkinson's disease, your fears,
>the impact on your life.  And," she concluded, "you would introduce the
>President."
>
>A little background.  The Pima Council on Aging, which had been contacted
>posthaste by the White House, had called Cynthia, and others, looking for
>three people, each representing a different medical problem, to appear with
>the President.
>
>"They will be calling you for a 'bio' to send to the White House."
>
>A half hour - make it an eternity - later, the call came.  The kind, gentle
>voice of Mary Ellen Beaurain talked to me about the role I would play, and
>asked me if I felt up to it.  She also personalized her involvement,
>explaining that one of her relatives suffers from Parkinson's.  Then she
>asked me the routine, and necessary, health and security questions.
>
>All went well until ... "Now for your experience with Medicare."
>
>"Uh, I am not on Medicare, not for another 16 months."
>
>An hour later, after I had suggested that a 2 minute discussion of my
>inability to secure insurance for times future, for long-term care when I
>can no longer roll over in bed, bathe or clothe myself, eat, walk, talk -
>well, you get the picture - she calls back.  She was sorry, but I just
>didn't fit the White House definition.
>
>I would not introduce the President.
>
>A few hours later, Cynthia calls again.  She apologizes - "This is not your
>best day" - and tells me that the corporate sponsor we had been seeking for
>our chapter for the past six months - it would be the first ever, anywhere
>- had declined our invitation.
>
>But there was a bright side - a very bright side!   The business we had
>approached about the corporate sponsorship will include us in an annual
>charity raffle to benefit three organizations.  "We would never have gotten
>here if it hadn't been for the corporate sponsor proposal," Cynthia assures
>me.
>
>After a minute of disappointment, I suggest "Tomorrow, let's start looking
>for another sponsor!"  If a corporation will "sponsor" the "HOLLYWOOD"
>sign, if corporations will leap to sponsor - and re-name - football bowl
>games and golf tournaments, and glue their name on stadia throughout the
>land, won't someone want to be the first ever corporate sponsor of a
>disease group support chapter.
>
>Cynthia agrees.  We can still find our sponsor!  Maybe even SPONSORS!  We
>just have to keep trying.
>
>Later, as I mull over all that has happened to me today - fleetingly a
>presidential greeter, now again a non-entity, creator of the first
>corporate sponsorship for a Parkinson's chapter, again only the creator of
>the first PROPOSED sponsorship - my phone rings.  It is my daughter, Lisa,
>a fine young lady, now 35 and living in New York, who has been doing
>everything humanly possible over the past 4 years of her marriage - most
>recently in vitro - to become a mother.  "I heard that little heartbeat
>today, daddy," she whispers.  "There is at least one baby, and there might
>be two.  You may become a double grandpa!"
>
>And I was getting down!
>
>You just have to keep trying.
>
>
>Bob Dolezal
>5319 E. Calle Bosque
>299-1030
>
>
>
>