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Enough is Enough About eight weeks ago I joined this list and have enjoyed all the comments, jokes, serious discussions and the efforts by the group to embrace all who are hurting with this disease or have a friend, relative or parent encumbered with this affliction. At first the members spent two weeks discussing the registration issue in Nebraska. The topic then moved to the Pope and speculation of whether God’s Messenger had been the beneficiary of our blessing also. At that time more than one person published a joke at the expense of the Pope without a complainant of irreverence. >From there we went to Jokes and Euthanasia and during this period we poked fun at our selves and the friendships formed and even selected a Parkie of the year. Several days ago at 3 am I finished reading all my mail and went to IRC Chat Channel to talk to the old standbys but Werpuppy, motherhen and Homeboy the sentinels at the gate were not stationed at their posts. With no one to talk to and a Northeastern storm battering on my windows I decided that I needed to create and activity to get through the day. We had just had a challenge to name the title and author of the poem Invictius and I though I could spice up the day for the group and play too. I went to the library and took out some inspirational books.....used handicapped license plates for the first time.....and it had too many quotations to put in a message. I thus thought of the $100.00 challenge which was meant as a fun task for the day. Little did I know that it would cause hard feelings, mark me as insensitive to our illness, and stone me from the group. So in response too all who were offended by the challenge (which was clearly labeled in the subject box) I apologize not for what I said or did but for the lack of perception to anticipate that I would hurt feeling by what I said But I too have a blessing, of the kind visited on the Pope, as he declared to the world his contraction of Parkinson’s Disease. My blessing is that on Thursday this week I finally had to give notice to my partners that I could not continue to work and would have to retire. The blessing is that I can now work full time on PD causes. I have a multitude of ideas but not enough time to implementing them. Now I will have more time. If you would like to see my latest project use your web browser and go to http://members.aol.com/dales99846/PAN.html And while you are there take some time to fill out the form. I called for help to build a data base and attach it to the web page so that the submit key would upload (or is it download) the information into the data base without the necessity of individually typing all the information by hand. While I had a few offers of help, and even contacted the engineer’s at prodigy to help, nothing concrete developed, so I bought microsoft access data base and a manual and started to read. From the directions I have been able to create the base and send the information at the press of the submit key to the data base. As I stumbled along the way, technical support was a big help at $ 30.00 per call. I have just one problem unresolved, when the information comes in to the data base it arrives in an up and down column instead of spreading across the page inserting information in the proper boxes. Even kicking the desk is not helping at this point. I’ve bribed a local college student (my daughter’s boy friend) to look at the problem tomorrow. I’m working my way through the New Jersey support group list furnished by the Parkinson’s Disease Foundation. I have contacted eleven support group leaders who are willing to help build the communication web. I have followed up the telephone call with a letter and mailed questionnaires to be completed and returned to bring into the fold those without email facilities. One by one I am going to contact or some volunteers will contact every support group in the USA to build the best communication web for PAN for the benefit of the PD community. I do not mean to ignore non us residents but I have not figured out how to deal abroad with this issue. My support group mentor, Tony Fazio, is about to work the State of New York Support Groups.....Hello anybody want to work their State I will send you forms to get you started with the form letters. So you see I take my condition and yours seriously and any thing I might say of a frivolous or insensitive nature is a slip of the tongue or an effort to engage in a little frivolity to lighten the day for us all. So enough is enough the $100.00 challenge is canceled and my check to PAN for $100.00 is on its way to them. The answers to the contest are Mother Theresa, John Kennedy and Henry Ford. As I close this long winded epilogue, I leave you with a message for the day: “One can never consent to creep when one feels an impulse to soar.” Helen Keller Dale Severance