THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, October 4, 1995 TAG: 9510040568
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: GUY FRIDDELL
LENGTH: Medium: 58 lines
If you're of a mind for a stroll Saturday morning, there's no better company, finer place, or nobler cause than the Memory Walk of the Alzheimer's Association.
I plan to join the throng.
Local board member Kay Rawls is going to remind me in a wake-up call at 8 a.m.
There are two walkathons, one for Southside Hampton Roads in the Norfolk Botanical Garden and the other at Fort Monroe for the Peninsula.
Registration begins at 9 a.m. at the Botanical Garden. The walk gets under way at 10 a.m.
Another board member, Dr. Scott Sautter, had an encouraging word on the effort to unmask the scourge that erases our power to remember.
A neuropsychologist, Sautter said, ``The 1980s proved to be a very exciting decade. George Bush designated the '90s as the decade of the brain to try to enlist federal money for the study and amelioration of neurologic diseases.
``Ninety percent of what we know today about the brain was discovered in only the past 10 years.''
Never would it have crossed my mind that I would ever take part in a walkathon. Oh, I've sponsored friends' entries with a contribution of so much money per mile or made a donation in a lump sum.
I doubt seriously of finishing the 6.2-mile course at the Botanical Garden. I may not cover a mile.
There are too many people with whom to converse, too many floral outbursts to be admired, a turtle in the path, a red-crested pileated woodpecker on a tree trunk.
The rose gardens are at their autumn peak. English border perennials are in bloom.
Crape myrtles are growing old gracefully, aging ladies in lavender and rose. Chrysanthemums - I cannot, even yet, bring myself to call them ``mums'' - are gorgeous suns.
Best of all, who knows what surprise the newly born wildflower meadow will offer? Something memorable, you may be sure.
These walks are strictly for pleasure. Why, David Balaban, I'm told, once brought along two Labrador retrievers.
Should the rubber-tire train come along the path, you may well see me hop aboard. I'll lend you a hand, if you like.
Over in Hampton, the walk on the seaside ramparts of Fort Monroe will begin at noon. No wonder federal budget cutters decline each round to ax Fort Monroe. It has all the charm of a child's play fort.
Proceeds from the walkathon will go to hospice care and research.
Offering hope for overcoming the illness, Dr. Sautter said, ``There is greater understanding in our knowledge for diagnosing and treating Alzheimer's disease than at any other time, and we are in fact on the threshold for further discoveries in the slowing of progress of the illness as research advances.'' by CNB