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Yesterday there was a Parkinson's Update Symposium at the University of Southern California Health Sciences Campus organized by the Chief of the Movement Disorders department -- Dr. Cheryl Waters, a member of our list. She very kindly allowed me some time to address the audience and some space in the foyer for signing Udall petitions and passing out packets of information and form letters addressed to all our S. California representatives. Her staff was enormously helpful too. It was great fun to talk to people who were fired up to make calls and write letters. Several missing links were forged to districts where we had been having trouble finding constituents who could help. The most unexpected connection there was meeting a friend from USC's T'ai Chi for Parkinsonian's pilot study (more on that another time). Dr. Collins, a retired chiropracter who has PD, lives two doors away from Rep. Juanita Millender-McDonald. They've often traded gumbo reci pes! And when other neighbors were making a fuss about the six-foot alligator he's kept for 30 years in his backyard, she helped him secure the proper permits for it! The Udall bill should be a snap (?!) after accomplishing that!