I still have Primary Lateral Sclerosis — I assume, to be honest, I always will. But it ain’t so bad; at least it isn’t painful and fatal, like ALS. Nothing is that bad. So they tell me.

Wednesday, the 17th , was my 83rd birthday; gee, just seventeen more and I’ll be an even 100 — can you imagine a cake with 100 candles! Eighty-three made a hell of a mess!

(I heard the 20th that Jim Garner had died; he was 86 and a friend of mine. We saw Sandy Koufax pitch for the Dodgers vs. the Cards in the WS in 1963 in Los Angeles. Koufax, the Cy Young winner, was named the MVP for that series). Cox, Glavine, and Maddox will be Hall of Famers as of tomorrow; Rose will not be (talk about Justice!).

I have to admit, though, I am sick of being sick. In ’63, when I was 32, I played a lot of golf and tennis — and I was pretty good, but I haven’t touched a club or a racquet since 2006 (I still have a full set of Wilsons — in a gold bag admired by Elvis Presley — clubs specially re-gripped for a man between 5’10” and 6’2”.

Wilson woods — a driver plus a 2, 3, 4 — all with black covers, + a 5 off-brand, no cover. Wilson irons, a #2 thru Wedge + a solid 24k gold putter + a pocketful of balls and t’s: all yours for $325.00—and I’ll throw in at nc two all-metal Wilson Cobra tennis racquets—one man’s and one woman’s (with covers), which won many trophies at Irondequoit CC in Rochester, NY. (NC for shipping; just your good check for $325.00.

Bob Scheerschmit and Mike Hyman in the ‘50s and ‘60s, and I played golf often with them, particularly Scheerschmit and former professional baseball pitcher, Jim Cullinane, most weekends — when Chris and I weren’t beating other mixed doubles players out of tennis trophies at various tournaments!

Writing six complete novels since retiring to Georgia in 1992 — the 7th is under way — and countless Wednesday and Saturday columns for the benefit of hundreds of readers keeps me pretty busy — plus listening to my devoted 2nd wife (over-hearing) when she talks to our daughter and grandchildren about child-rearing in Nashville.

Playing golf with Bob Schmeerschmit meant getting to know Mike and Marion Hyman quite well (not only were they close friends, but Mike owned and operated a record shop in a strip mall), and he taught me all he knew about chess (which was a great deal). I was hooked. Thanks to Hyman, with whom I played 19,014,359 games (and lost every single one!), I learned one important aspect about chess: what a tough a mental exercise it was!

Early in January one year, the Schmeerschmits and the Hymans decided to drive from Rochester, NY to Miami, FL — they each had new cars and Bob had pockets’ jammed full of Due\Bills for tourist motels in Florida — and they invited my 1st wife (at the time) and me to go along.

Despite my owning a new Cadillac convertible, my ex-wife opted to ride with the Schmeerschmits and I rode with the Hymans in their new Buick; the Schmeerschmits had a transmission hump in the rear floor of their new Thunderbird which I found an uncomfortable and trying nuisance.

It was a case of eight hours off and four on, four hours of driving, then eight hours not driving — just sitting. My four hours on-duty seemed to occur mostly at night when the road was a straight rod, and my view was obliterated with mist; visibility was very limited and difficult. Nothing adverse happened, however, and we all arrived in Florida intact and unscathed.

Oh, I do recall a specific incident: I spent my first night in Florida at my father’s house near Melbourne with his new wife (she was a fat pig of a gal!) and two little snotty kids, a boy and a girl (my ex-wife and my cohorts stayed at a Holiday Inn nearby).

I looked down at my feet in bed that night and saw that the long time in Hyman’s car had made my ankles swell to about nine times their normal size — this scared the hell outta me! I noticed too that my old man still hid his whiskey bottles (he was an alcoholic as long as I’d known what an alcoholic was) in the dining room chandelier, where the illumination of the bulbs made the outline of the bottles visible through the plastic shade.

I thought of stealing them that night, but I didn’t. The next morning we moved on to Miami.

On the way back, after three weeks of sun, sand, and surf — not to mention countless vodka\tonics and games of chess — we stayed somewhere in northern Pennsylvania, where it was 36 degrees.

It’s amazing how you can forget how nice and warm it was in Florida when you’re used to a 35-48 degree winter in Rochester, after enjoying 85 degrees down South, and you suddenly find yourself trying to fall asleep in Pennsylvania — almost at home on the frozen tundra. It was so cold in the roadside motel (I later read they had gone out of business — good! — but it wasn’t bad for $7.42 per couple, including tax, which we bitched about all night) I slept fully dressed .

We got home the next day after being away for a month; I had spent, out of pocket, a grand total of the $7.42. I had ridden down and back in a new Buick, had spent less than a sawbuck during the entire thirty days, and my buddy’s pockets were still stuffed full of Due/Bills for many of Miami’s tourist havens still waiting to be tried out!

It was, all in all, a marvelous trip, and I wouldn’t trade a moment of it for anything, except the company of my ex-wife. In the years since, I’ve survived the ups and downs of living from day to day with PLS; I have found it to be more than worth the effort, especially with the loving assistance of my 2nd wife — even with or without the plague of this awful affliction.

Now, if she’d just learn to play chess — with the same enthusiasm she displays for her i-Phone and computer!



Copyright © 2014 by Robert A. Mills, all rights reserved, may not be published, nor re-written nor broadcast without the author’s permission