World-up-ism

The future is what you make it.
People tend to look at those who don't fix their eyes on the world around them as strange.
Maybe they're looking at the world the rest of us just can't see yet, and are deep in trying to figure out how to get the rest of us there.

-VRS

World-up-ism

As I've said a thousand times...
You can't give light to the sun. It was only made to give and never receive.
You should do the same.

-VRS

The Act and the Reward

Well, well, well, doesn't it seem that there is some tension among the troops in this battle to conquer Alzheimer's and Parkinson's Disease?

Some people are only willing to fight if there is a guaranteed positive outcome for themselves. Unfortunately life has no guarantees. Everything is always half chance. All we can ever do is try.

It's sad to hear that some people are willing to fight only if they are rewarded. I know the reward being asked is not much. Sometimes it's just a simple beautiful "thank you". To me, that's a nice reward and more than anyone ever needs. But I think that when a person wants to be singled out and thanked above and beyond his peers, and above and beyond his fellow advocates, then this tells me that "to want" for the sake of yourself is a part of your character and you may never have taken part in the great effort if you would not be pulled aside and given a private "thanks".

I tell anyone who comes on my team that there are no rock stars here, and that people can check their ego at the door on the way in, or take it with them on the way out. I tell them if they want to be a hero, if they want big thank you, hugs, attention, fame, kind words of thanks, then they came here for the wrong reasons. I tell my team mates to never expect anything from anyone, anywhere. We aren't called the "Rock Stars", we're called "the Regulars". We have even gone so far as to create a set of 11 rules "the Regulars" must work under.

I tell them - you will never be paid to do this.
I tell them - you will actually have to pay for it yourselves in many ways; financially, physically, mentally, emotionally. A new person considering becoming one of "the Regulars" may ask "why we don't take advantage of these things by getting sponsors to cover our costs?" I say because this is your sacrifice. How do you expect others to sacrifice enough to make donations toward research on your behalf if you haven't paid your dues first.

If they have a hard time understanding that, or understanding the concept of doing something for the sake of good and not for thanks in any form - well then I tell them to imagine the top of a mountain they have been struggling to reach the summit of. They may have been climbing for days. They may have spent months preparing for the moment they reach the top. Their muscles burn. Their head aches. They are sick from fatigue or the altitude and find themselves throwing up on their own feet as they walk on. BUT, finally they get there and it's done....they made it to their goal. This is their summit.

I could tell them to look around them.
There is no welcoming committee.
There is no parade.
There are no banners flying with their names on them.
There is no hand shake or pat on the back.
There is no hug.
There is no one there to say thank you for doing this for the cause.
There's just you, the wind, the stone, the snow and the big silent world below you.

I could walk up to them there on the summit and ask "Why did you do this?"
"For the cause." they should say.
"Was it hard?"
"Yes, harder than anything I've ever done."
"What if it was harder, would you have done this?"
"Yes".
"Why?"
"Because doing what I can to conquer these diseases is too important not to try."
"Do you want anything in return?" I might ask.
There can only be one answer for anyone in "the Regulars", and it should always be the same. "Nothing other than the cures".

As I've said a thousand times... You can't give light to the sun. It was only made to give and never receive.

The moral behind this is that doing something good is both the "act" and the "reward".
There is no need for special attention or thank you's beyond that.

World up,
E

World-up-ism

When a man knows what he wants, the world has a way of stepping aside for him.

If he has bled enough for his cause, it just may let him have it.

When I say I was born to end this, I believe it has been generations in the making.

I am the Army of Change.

-VRS

Senior Times Magazine

Here is a recent article about the Regulars in the Senior Times Magazine (Ohio) November 2009. It was written by Pam Spence and is also the very first article to mention the "10 Mountains 10 Years" movie!

Sorry for not having the link to post it sooner. I hope you like it!

World up,
E

Click the link: http://www.backlightproductions.com/pdf/senior_times_magazine_2009.pdf

Dr. Oz Show

Ciao,

I was invited by my good friend and fellow Alzheimer's Warrior Michelle Muir, to go down to the Dr. Oz Show. I thought it was a good show, and you're all going to find it pretty helpful.

I think he basically shot a week worth of segments, and I was there for the Alzheimer's segment. It was all last minute, I only heard about it the day before, but it was cool. There was plenty of time to go.

They had me in with about 20 people on the panel to discuss Alzheimer's in a town hall style meeting. The question format changed somewhat before we got there earlier in the day and lucky me (???) I didn't get a chance to say anything. There was definitely something I wanted to say but I think it would have taken the piece slightly off topic, so I guess it worked out better this way. I'll have to wait for another opportunity.

It was a great experience though, seeing how they organize the shows, move the people in and out, run the prompters, the lights, and the cameras. I have a load of respect for a good talk show host and his crew. They work under a lot of pressure. My hat is off to Dr. Oz and my own personal favorite host. . . Leeza.

It was also good to see my friends from the Alzheimer's Association (Hudson Valley Chapter) again. Also, I had a chance to see my friend Marilynn Garzione who is the author of "Released to the Angels" - a caregiver's journey. She had something great to say on the Dr. Oz Show. Check out here website and pick up her book when you can. http://www.releasedtotheangels.com/

All in all it was an exciting experience.

Keep an eye out for the show on TV. You'll never recognize me, I cleaned up my act before I went down to the studio. Well actually I just blew my cover with that photo of me and Marilynn.

World up,

E

Anne Hathaway is now a beautiful part of The 10 Mountains 10 Years Film

Ciao Everyone,

I'm super pumped to be able to finally tell you the last big secret about the 10 Mountains 10 Years (movie). Well you already know Leeza Gibbons has done the introduction, and Bruce Springsteen has added music to the feature film documentary as well. But now the secret is out.

Anne Hathaway has done the narration for our film !

I know, I know, I know, I'm still trying to wrap my mind around the thought of Anne Hathaway is doing this for the cause!!! To have three great believers join the cause in this quest to find the cures for Alzheimer's and Parkinson's Disease is an amazing honor.

I can't wait for you all to have a chance to see it along with us in one of the film festivals!

If you haven't already joined the "10 Mountains, 10 Years (the movie)" page here on Facebook, definitely stop by and click join for updates. They will email you information on additional progress, film festivals, the official film trailer, and more.

Years ago I looked around me and saw an ocean of people and thought we have energy. I know I'm not alone in believing that together we can change the world. We are the army of change we've been looking for.

In the quest to conquer Alzheimer's & Parkinson's Disease, we were born to end this!

World up,

Enzo

- the Regulars

(10 Mountains - 10 Years - A Quest for the Cure)

////////////////////////////

Check out the Back Light Productions website for all sorts of current details!
http://www.backlightproductions.com/

World-up-ism

Who's really born with all the answers?

Today on my birthday I think about all life's mysteries, and how slowly the answers unfold.

I realize more and more that the things which matter most won't come to those who wait for them, and the certainly will never come to those who are not looking.

An answer is a reward for the dedication and daily search for an ounce of truth in a mountain of obscurity.

-VRS

World-up-ism

What good is a man who doesn't try to make his world better?

We can't wait another day, week, month or year for the time to do what needs to be done.

Life is not always lived on a schedule convenient to us all.

"One Life" means the time to "do" is always now.

- VRS

"10 Mountains 10 Years" Movie Update

Ciao!
It’s been four years since the Regulars began the “10 Mountains – 10 Years (A Quest for the Cure)” project. It’s been almost as long since the day Jennifer Yee joined our team and began working on her feature film documentary. But, at long last his past Saturday night “the Regulars” had the first look at the "10 Mountains 10 Years" (movie), and it’s fantastic.

I can’t wait for you all too finally see it!
This film will move you.

I’m absolutely confident that when you finally get a chance to see the official film trailer and then ultimately the movie you’ll come away from it believing that anything is possible. You'll walk out of the theater that day feeling like a giant and saying, “I can do this. I can make a difference. I can help find the cures too.”

In the quest to conquer Alzheimer's and Parkinson's Disease, we were born to end this!

As we say in “the Regulars” Together is ONE.

World up,
Enzo

PS - Please keep an eye out for updates from the Facebook 10 Mountains 10 Years (the movie) group page. If you haven't already joined the group go ahead and join it. They’ll send you updates about the trailer release, the official production company website, the official movie poster and film festival locations & dates. Oh by the way, there is one more surprise in store for you which will be announced shortly.

PPS - I'd also like to make a big shout out to the production crew for the film - James Brevard, Brian Armstrong, Philip Giffin, and Ezio Lucido. They did such an outstanding job! Also my heart and gratitude go out to Leeza Gibbons and Bruce Springsteen for believeing in us and joining us along the way.

"There are no living Saints. In this world you can only try to do good. Forgive yourself for the moments when circumstances will not allow you to. The end will justify the means." VRS

PS - These are my ancestors in the stained glass window.

2 - Wai'ale'ale 2005 - "The Three Year Walk In"

Even in a lightning fast world of 60 second turbo dogs, instant coffee, and instant messages; instant gratification has always seemed to elude me. In school I was slow. Outside of school I was slow. It’s just always been a long learning process. Personally I don’t feel it was detrimental. I feel that when most people were given lessons in school or life they would immediately accept them as truth, and never stop for a second to wonder about all the “why’s” which could be asked. I’ve always been slowed down with lots of “why’s”, and everything I want to do ends up being an epic because of it. By now I might be well on my way to being a highly successful businessman, save for a few more why’s? For example; “Why does Alzheimer’s Disease exist? Why does Parkinson’s Disease exist? Why does my mother have Alzheimer’s? Why did my grandmother die from Alzheimer’s? Why does my Father-in-Law have Parkinson’s? Why haven’t these diseases been cured?

There has always been an ocean of time between me and my goals, but I keep swimming.

In March of 2002, I was in the Mount Kisco Borders Book store to pick up a few new climbing magazines and a few architecture books. I could spend hours in a book store. Just before I head out my usual stop is by the magazine rack where I came across an article called “Soaked” by a writer named Bruce Barcott, who writes for “Outside” magazine. In the story he describes his own expedition to climb Mount Wai’ale’ale.

My wife and I had been to Kauai on our honeymoon like thousands of other couples from around the world, so I’ve seen this place before. But, at the time it didn’t quite strike me the way it was about to. While there on our honeymoon I’m sure there were a thousand more romantic things to focus on, but I do recall the mountain. Wai’ale’ale rose before us with its summit covered in mist thousands of feet above. It’s significance was quite understated. I had no idea that this mountain was so unique. I had no idea it was such a challenge to those who thought they might reach the top of it. I had no idea how it would pull me back with an almost supernatural magnetism to court it years later.

Unfortunately, Mr. Barcott and his small team did not make it to the top. That’s not to say that their effort was any less meaningful or determined than others that tried before him. Just knowing he tried to make it, then went on to write about it has brought me to this very moment in time. In fact, the mountain has seen people come and go for almost 30 years without allowing a single person to reach its summit by any means other than that of a short and dangerous helicopter flight from the low lands. Of course for even this, Mother Nature needs to grant her permission by lifting the perpetual mists for enough time to fly in without crashing on the mountains 3,000 foot vertical walls. You see, the summit is hidden from view in these foreboding mists on an average of 320 days per year. Mount Wai’ale’ale is known as the "Wettest place on Earth”, it is surrounded by the “Alakai” which is the "Highest Rain Forest in the World”, and to this day no one in this generation of explorers has reached the summit on foot. Not a handful. Not ten. Not five. Not one. No one. Period.

Standing there with the smell of coffee in the air, the buzz of spring outside, and the feeling that part of my own personal renaissance was lying there before me in the black & white text was larger than life feeling. Mount Wai’ale’ale could give me a chance to see what I was made of. This was a chance to challenge myself. This was a chance to conquer myself, and to conquer one of the last few places on earth which many now consider impossible to reach on foot.

I’ve never been drawn in so quickly. I could feel the blood rush back into my stagnant fingertips and the hair on the back of my head was starting to stand up straight. I was going to make this happen. Somehow, some way, someday this mountain was going to beaten, and if I can help it, my feet would feel it beneath them.

Then came a special delivery from my own Devil’s Advocate. It’s that little practical voice of reason that haunts every mans dreams of doing something great. Just as quickly as I had been struck with by the desire to climb to this mysterious place came the realization that I’d never planned an “expedition” before. How was I going to do this? What did I have to research? Where can I find the information? What do I have to learn? How will I climb it? Do I need special equipment? How long will it take? How much will it cost? Where can I get my climbing team? What do you know about any of this, and what makes you so special that you think you can do what many others could not? Question after question after question like torrents of rain storming in over me trying to dampen my enthusiasm and make me quit before I would ever start. “What the hell?” I thought, “If I’m going to climb to the wettest place on earth I better get used to the rain, so pour it on!”

In the 3 years that passed since that moment I prepared in every possible to help me achieve this goal. All my faculties were tested, physically, mentally, financially and on the inside I rode the emotional roller coaster between confidence and self doubt. There was much to be done. I searched out every internet site, downloaded countless photos of the area, read every newspaper article, reviewed every topo map, bought every book which had any mention of this mysterious place. I had even emailed my former counter parts at the USGS Hydrological Division (Hawaii). Then, when I was done checking everything I went back and double checked the information I had. Some of it was credible, and some of it was sketchy, but when a place is considered to be as mysterious as Wai’ale’ale everything had to be taken with a grain of salt. Collecting background to all of this was in itself was a challenge.

Likewise at the same time during this period, I had been climbing my own personal sort of mountains. I was busy working between 60 to 70 hours per week (and only being paid for 40), while volunteering on two village boards. I ran in my first political race. I bought my first house, then I found myself out of work for 6 months while paying for 2 mortgages. In addition to those mortgages, I had to contend with construction costs, as I went on to completely gut, demolish, renovate and build additions to our first house.

It seemed as thought I’d made so many big strides over the last few years - personally, professionally, and in volunteering for my community. Although, trying to extract information about Wai’ale’ale was difficult, I felt that I was nearing the limits of what I could possibly know about this place short of going there to get on the mountain itself. The wheels on the big machine were spinning, but I wasn’t getting any closer to reaching the summit of Wai’ale’ale. I wasn’t taking the next step…whatever that might be. Maybe now it was fear of the unknown or worse – procrastination.

It had always been my intension to create a project to raise awareness and funds for research in Alzheimer’s & Parkinson’s but I didn’t know how to go about it. Where would I begin the process of inquiring. Which organizations would be best to contact? What did they do for these diseases? Would they somehow sponsor my expedition and help me pay for some of the expenses? There were still so many unanswered questions.

“All talk and no action”. I hate that expression, especially when someone directs it at me. I hate it even more when I’m thinking it to myself, and not knowing why I’m not moving ahead. Sometimes I find that I’ve been prepared to commit to something and stood still shell shocked in some way. Maybe it’s partly the mentality where in its more comfortable to stand still in hell then wander over the next mysterious mountain not knowing what would be on the other side. Maybe it’s worse than where I was, or maybe it would be the heaven I was looking for. It wouldn’t take much to push me over that edge and get the machine rolling, but it does sometimes take just that. It’s funny how that little push can present itself in our lives, and thank God my eyes and ears are always open looking for a sign. In my case the power of the push wasn’t physical. The push came in the form of words.

Let’s go back in time for a moment. You’ll see just how these words lay dormant in the backbone of my life waiting for a trigger to make me stand up and move.

When I was young for the most part I didn’t idolize the usual suspects like celebrities and sports figures from the leagues of rich and famous personalities. KISS was the only modern day equivalent to the idols I had in this day and age. Regardless of what music critics and the media were saying in the land of hype and glory, at the time the message I was hearing was something they’d been conveying to fans throughout their reign. If you could dream big and were determined to succeed you could turn those dreams into reality.

From the perspective of my family, the stories I’d heard about my own ancestors were big enough to set the bar high for me to aspire to. I admired my Grandparents, my Uncles and my Father, who left everything they knew behind to move here from Sicily.

My Mom’s family – the Chadwick’s were older and more complex than my Sicilian family. Her family is one of the oldest British families on record and has more than its share of knights, Saints and other interesting characters. To this day it boggles my mind to see how they were intertwined with historical events spanning back through more than 1,400 years of the island’s history. They were there before England was England, and they let the conquerors army know that. But, this is a long story for another day.

I’ve always maintained that we are all a sum of the people in our families who have come before us. So, for a little kid growing up as the first born American in a family of immigrants living in working class Mount Kisco, New York, just knowing that my ancestors were passionate and larger-than-life in their own ways was fuel for me to try to live up to their ancient standards.

My Mother was an even keeled personality, but would not stand for being treated unfairly, and would go out of her way to see to it that other people were treated the same way. It was a quality that she also tried to instill in me when I was growing up. I remember hearing the story about how I was conceived out of wedlock, and she was still not quite sure how my dad felt about marrying her and raising me. She basically laid down the law and said if he wasn’t going to do the right thing she would move to Australia and raise me on her own. I’ve always been profoundly moved by knowing that she was willing to leave, and face the hardship of moving while pregnant to a strange land far away from her safety net in order to have me. I suppose in the 1960’s abortion was also popular, but she wouldn’t have it. She chose to have me regardless of the difficulties she might face raising me as a single mom. In essence she saved me from never having ever been, and I think all these years later in some strange way, I’m probably trying to save her right back.

As it turned out my father had no intension of letting us go to Australia, and they’re still together today.

Growing up two idols made the biggest collective impression on my character. Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni, and Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci. More simply put, Michelangelo and Leonardo DaVinci. I loved the fact that they could do more than dream big, they could act on those dreams and turn them into reality. They were Renaissance Men. Even for as young as I was, I seem to get the impression that so much of the world around us sprung from their minds and I admired that. It wasn’t that they never made mistakes, but rather that they believed in the ideas they wanted to convey to the world and moved toward proving those ideas with complete conviction and super human determination. When I was little I thought, “How great would it be if I could just try to be like that”.

In elementary school it didn’t matter that I was always the last student to finish my class work. It didn’t matter that I had to stay in during my lunch hours to do this while I could hear the other kids playing out in the playground after lunch. It didn’t even matter that it took me twice as long to finally learn my subjects. I just had to learn to accept certain things and not to be to be saddened the pressure of keeping up with everyone else. I learned early that everyone has their own special strengths and weakness’. I thought… “So what if I wasn’t going to be the quickest at things other kids were good at. Instead I’m going to be creative, and when something is too hard for everyone else I’m never going to give up until I find an answer.” Basically these two things moved me through life. Be creative, and never give up. In my young mind this was exactly how Michelangelo and DaVinci lived. I was going to do the same, even if I could never equal them with my accomplishments, I was going to try my hardest at everything I cared for.



Let’s flash forward again. This is going somewhere... believe me.

So, one evening during a birthday party for my friend Nino we found ourselves in a club located down in the basement of the Chelsea Hotel in New York City. The club was dark as usual and it looked like all the vamps were out that night, but in the middle of all that commotion I met and had a chance to talk to a girl named Jackie. She was beautiful at first glance, at second glance and third glance. She was very elegantly dressed, and this immediately set her apart from everyone else in the room. She had a fantastic personality and was also a great speaker. I remember thinking she could easily maneuver between conversations on any range of topics. It didn’t seem there was a subject that could throw her. Jackie’s talks were strikingly faceted. In mid-stream she could amazingly change her vocabulary to suit the subject. If we were going on about music it was contemporary, if the topic was about other more serious matters of the world her words and tone would elevate to something more fitting a college lecture, and the glide in that transition was seamless. She was different from most people I usually meet in life, and as I would come to find out she would mark me and then move me in the greatest of ways.

Afterwards I only had a chance to see Jackie a handful of times. We stayed in touch mostly through email, sometimes by phone, but ultimately it was something she said to me which turned on all the big engines and really started this project moving.

As you recall I was making strides in learning all I could about turning my charity expedition to Wai’ale’ale into reality, but I was making absolutely no headway on actually moving forward with it.

One day while on my way home from work I had been on the phone with Jackie. At this point she already knew quite a bit about what I had been doing with my life. She knew I was working for an architecture design firm in Greenwich Connecticut. She knew I was planning this expedition to Wai’ale’ale. I was trying to turn the expedition into a charity event. I was involved in politics. I was involved in volunteering on village committees. I was writing and recording music. I was getting more involved in graphic arts and my photography. I was starting to write more. I was redesigning and renovating a house my wife and I had recently bought. There were so many other things going on in my life as well, and she had been making a mental note of it all.

So, in the middle of our conversation her voice cuts through with a quick sentence which dropped on me like a bomb I never expected to fall. Jackie said, “You kind of remind me of a Renaissance Man.”

I went… “What?”

“You remind me of a Renaissance Man.”

“Oh I could never be a Renaissance Man. Michelangelo and DaVinci are Renaissance Men. I might try to do some big things, but I’m just me. They’re giants in the scheme of things.”

I know what you’re starting to think, there goes my head. It was super inflating.

I’m not used to being on the receiving end of compliments at all, so any compliment would have thrown me, but this one was different. This one kicked me out of idle and into high gear. Never in my life had I ever expected to be associated with the words “Renaissance Man”, a term I had affectionately held in the highest regard for my two childhood idols – Michelangelo & DaVinci. In one stroke Jackie had given me the greatest compliment of all time, and at the same moment motivated me into this surreal ultra high energy, full throttle, larger-than-life mode of invincibility. Instantly everything I had been working toward flashed through my mind, and it felt as though it was all more possible now than ever before.

I remember finally getting home to my little apartment and turning on the computer. I looked around me at the shelves full of books. I looked over to the rolled up maps of Wai’ale’ale and plans in the corner by the Kitchen. And, I pinned up a photo of my mom to the inside door of my computer armoire.

I thought to myself, “This is it. The wheels are turning. I’m going the distance now.”

Within less than a year from the phone call with Jackie. I had reached out to the Alzheimer’s Association, and established a relationship with the local Hudson Valley Chapter. I had made a number of attempts to contact the various Parkinson’s Disease organizations and held out hope that they would be interested enough in my project to call me back. I decided that I was finished with research toward my first charity expedition, and had gone to Kauai on a reconnaissance trip with Ken to personally size up the route I had designed for the future expedition. Six months after our reconnaissance trip to Kauai, it was “Game on”.

The Regulars “A Trail Called Hope” Mount Wai’ale’ale Expedition 2005 was now a reality!



World up,
Enzo
(to be continued)

1 - Wai'ale'ale 2005 - "We've Been Looking For You"

A Trail called Hope
The Regulars – Wai’ale’ale Expedition 2005

We’ve been looking for you
August 17th. 2005

So there it was, the “Idol of Wai’ale’ale”. I can’t tell, was it smiling at us, or was laughing. The wooden faces of the tiki idol were facing the summit of Mount Wai’ale’ale, which was only a few miles beyond us to the South. It really did look eerie. The way it was sitting there reminded me of an old Hawaiian King on a throne made of a tree which had been knocked down in hurricane ages ago. The little jungle king was nestled in a cloak of beautiful iridescent green moss which looked like velvet. Surrounding us was the Alakai, which is the highest jungle rain forest in the world. The idol reigned here. The story of the idol says that one face stands for strength, and the other stands for good fortune. I couldn't help but wish that even if one face was laughing, at least the other might be smiling on us. I thought, “I’ll be back for you one day.” We touched it and we walked away.

The research I’d done in the last 2 years led me to believe that each year there may be only two very small windows of opportunity to reach the water logged summit under relatively little rain. Ken and I had previously come here a few months ago in February and most of the island was bone dry. During much of that week I don’t even recall hearing of rain at all in the Alakai. So, I was feeling pretty good that again just after the solstice would be a pretty good time to come back, and here we are.



Years ago I struggled through school. Unless I was studying a subject I completely loved, I never did quite appreciate doing the homework. As the old saying goes, “Sometimes education is wasted on the youth.” In my case maybe the saying was true. But, there is another saying I always believed in, which can be touted all one wants in the present, but can only be proven in hind sight. “The end justifies the means”. As a creature of habit, now I find myself in my late thirties, and my habits are still the same – only now they’re amplified. I’m more driven to learn everything I can about the things I’m passionate for. And, as life would have it, I’m passionate about calling attention to Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s Disease, and conquering it my way. I have to say, I’m happy with myself. This time it seems I’ve stepped out of the shadow of what was once a terrible student in grade school, because my research on Mount Wai’ale’ale had paid off with relatively dry weather.

They call this “The Wettest Place on Earth”, but ever since arriving on this island the only full on rain fell upon us while we lay in the tent last night. The whole experience has been pretty exciting for Yankee’s like us. Branches were lashing around the sides of the tent and leaves were pasting themselves to the outer walls making a sound which reminded me of wet towels being slapped on the sides of a pool deck. The wind was no where near the speeds Ken and I have experienced on previous climbs, but it did sound like it had been blowing over Lions Head on Mount Washington. Our tent was nothing like the Hyatt at Poipu on the South side of the island where I stayed on my honeymoon, but it was surprisingly comfortable and dry. In the morning our shelter was camouflaged with twigs and all sorts of green and brown leaves.

Koaie stream, is the border crossing into Never Never Land. It’s every bit as surreal as one might imagine the world to be at the fringes of a place where few men willingly travel beyond. There was a beautiful low water fall cascading gently three feet down from an upper level of the river. Jutting into the waterfall like it was stomping out of the jungle was a large stone which resembled the fossilized foot of a giant T-Rex with water running through its toes. The magic of this place is that it captivates you. Here a person feels as though he is walking the machete’s edge between a mysterious ancient world, and cutting the edge in the seldom seen recesses of an overgrown planet which has miraculously avoided devastation by mankind. This river scene has been and will forever be frozen in time.



The days on the island leading into this were beginning to wear me out. Traveling over the hills was like a physical, mental and emotional roller coaster ride. I’d hit so many highs and lows over the last few days between the silence of the jungle and the bombardment of my thoughts. While I was clearly caught up in the moment and the excitement of being here, I felt so removed from the world I knew I could re-explore my thoughts of it, and reconsider everything I’d gone through over the last few years leading up to this point. The word “why” is no stranger to climbers. Why am I here? Why am I doing this? Why are there only two of us? Why isn’t this as easy as I thought? Why can’t we drink the water? Why am I lost? Why isn’t this GPS working? Why don’t I quit and go home? A thousand times…why, why, why?




With about 20 collective miles from the coast behind us, and with 60 pound packs on our backs, the welcome wagon Koaie Stream had rolled out for our tired and beaten bodies was a 300 climb up over the ridge of its Northern bank. We moved slowly hand over hand, grabbing any roots we could see or feel in the underbrush. Our feet would slip out from below us in the slick mud made in rain last night. The mammoth sized ferns constantly blocked our view of the next safe hold, and branches were whipping and tearing at our face, poking at our eyes and pulling on our clothing. My Black Diamond Raven mountain axe made itself useful for something more than being my walking stick. I would swing to sink it deep into rotten logs, or hook its head around anything strong enough to support my weight. Indiana Jones had his whip, and I’ve got my axe, it has always been an extension of my own arm. Ken wasn’t as fortunate because he’d only brought his walking sticks.

It was funny to hear Ken only twenty feet below me on the hill, but out of sight in the overgrowth thrashing around and grunting in pain every so often as his feet would slip into a hidden opening in the ground. The roots would clamp in on his ankles like a bear claw trap. Listening to him howl was giving me a flash back to one of our late winter climbs on Mount Washington. Ken and I had come off trail during a white out as we were making out way back down from the summit, and we’d had lost our way. When a person walks on the compact snow of a well worn trail it feels like walking down a Manhattan sidewalk, it’s so easy you just glide. But, when you find yourself even two feet off trail you could count on sinking into deep snow and going nowhere but down. Wading through snow which is up to your mid thighs makes it real tough going and super exhausting. In the all too familiar Mount Washington white out I could barely see Ken, but even if I couldn’t see him at all I knew where he was.

“Fuckin’ Shit! Dam it! Owww I twisted my ankle! Where’s that Fuckin trail??? Ugggg I’m going to kill you for getting us off trail! Fuck! Fuck! Fuck! I hate this Shit! Slow down Enzo you asshole! I’m going to break this pole over your head! Where did you go? Slow down! Enzo! Enzo! …Enzo???”




All those poetic words and phrases meant that Ken was having a great old time post-holing or wading through the snow bending his legs and ankles in all kinds of directions. He can never fool me. I knew once we got off the mountain he’d be saying that he was loving every minute of it.

Back in the present, Ken’s legs had already taken a good beating on the way into the Alakai, and I know it’s not supposed to be funny but I had to laugh at something, and listening to him doing his usual bitching was killing me in the best way at the moment. I know he be laughing at me if the shoe was on the other foot.

The humidity in the air was making it hard to breath. I’m no stranger to breathing problems. I had grown up with terrible asthma, and when I was young I’d been known to get adrenaline shots with ultra long needles to the chest to help get me back in control of my breathing. It always feels like hell but you learn to compensate for it, and it has gotten much better in recent years. On my way up hill through the ferns and in the still air I noticed I was dragging then holding my breaths. Casey Grom our head guide up the chute on Mount Rainier popped into my head. As a teacher of mine in the sport of mountaineering I could remember him always shouting down the slope to me “Enzo I can’t hear that power breathing!” Although it’s a breathing technique designed for traveling at high altitudes; in the heavy humid air here in the Alakai it might work just as well. Our legs were burning from overwork, and we’d already built up a sweat before starting this pitch, so I thought I’d give that “power breathing” a go to see if I could get air around to the parts of the body which were screaming for it. It works pretty damn well. After what seemed like an eternity of toil on this steep tangled face it seemed like a breeze blew right out of heaven. We must be near the top, I thought! The wind blowing across the upper hillside was making its way through the trees, between the giant ferns and down into my jacket like hands. It was like one of those fantastically beautiful almost better than sex feelings, and in a similar fashion I was going to enjoy it while it lasted. I unzipped my jacket all the way down and held it open like a sail to catch the breeze, and I stood still on the incline enjoying this amazing moment. Ten minutes later we were on top.

The weather was as perfect. It was a beautiful morning so far, and I was hoping nothing would change that. The Alakai looked so vast from this vantage point. To my left was the Poomau Valley, stunning, steep and only just beginning to make its long decent down into the Waimea Canyon. To the right was another valley which was dropped away from us about 200 feet and rolled across like a bowl to the next ridge about ½ a mile away. The jungle here is no joke. You can be seduced by its strange beauty, drawn into its dark green recesses, and fall captivated in a trancelike state by Eden in the truest sense of the word. But if you loose your game face for more than a few seconds you might find yourself sliding head first down a bank into a bog you might never walk out of. Even on a crystal clear day if you get more than 30 feet from your partner, he’s gone....completely out of sight. If you’re more than 50 feet away not only will you not see him, but you might not even hear him scream. The lush rain forest vegetation will muffle sound so much that the only things you'll hear are your heart pounding inside your chest, you’re labored breathing, and a swarm of flying insects you never seem to see.

In the dense mists of a whiteout you’d better be a master at navigation, or plan on standing still for how ever long it takes until the sightless whiteness lifts for long enough for you to scramble up a tree to look as far as you can and figure your next heading. I’m no expert at navigation, so thank God for a clear day.

Eclipsing all other more practical ways to raise funds and awareness for Alzheimer’s, get ourselves killed, hurt, or at very least in trouble, the most unnerving danger associated with exploring the back country in Kauai would have to be hands down ...the Drug Fields. Tell me again why we’re doing this?

“Pakalolo” as marijuana is called locally, is grown in small plantations tucked far away from easy access to the general public and law enforcement officials. There, in the secrecy of a deep unexplored valley or a hillside covered by a canopy of trees to blanket them from above, they quietly do their thing. Unfortunately there's no one who will tell you where they are, or how to avoid them other than “Don’t go back there. If you hear people or see them far back in the jungle you’re probably going to wake up dead”. The drug fields aren't helpfully located on any trail maps, so if you're ever unlucky enough to step into a Venus Fly Trap like this, it will probably be your first and last trip to a marijuana plantation. Back there you might hear a muffled "BANG" before the lights go out on life.

As I worked out in the gym during in the months going into this expedition I was counting on being physically strong enough so that this expedition wouldn't kill me, but I couldn't help but laugh at the irony of possibly staring down the barrel of a gun and into the eyes of some backwoods crunchy boy then dying of drug related causes, even though I’ve never smoked any Mary Jane.

We cleared through a section of wet dangling undergrowth, and would likely have a few minutes before we headed into another damp bank of ferns. We checked the GPS to see if we could get a fix on our location in relation to our heading. The track back setting on the GPS looked like spaghetti on the screen while we were moving through this section. The trail was so faint and subtle that in order to stay on track we had to differentiate between what was a wild boar track, a few less leaves on the ground, or a slight thinning of obstructions in our way. Our pace was slowing down to almost a standstill. Getting lost here is unavoidable, and we did a few times. I’d like to say we did it just for kicks but we didn’t. We could only hope it didn’t happen often, and when it did, we needed to try to find our way back on track as quickly as possible.

Sometime down the trail I found I actually wasn’t on it at all…again. In the midst of zig’zag’ing back and forth for a clue to the way back I stepped over a fallen tree and into a mud pit. Oh joy! This area was about 300 square feet of trampled, gored, and uprooted muck which was softer and deeper than I thought it was going to be. My military jungle boots with me in them sank to about half way up my calves. A gang of wild boar must have had a field day on this spot last night. The suction was intense, and it seemed the more I moved, the more difficult it became to pull myself out. I called out to ken for a hand, then fell back and noticed he wasn’t behind me. He must be back down the trail taking it easy on his swollen ankles. The mud was making loud slurping sounds as I struggled in it, but finally after a few minutes there was a pop and I was free. It was a miracle my boots were still on.

Well that was fun. It reminded me of when I was younger growing up in Mount Kisco, New York. My friends and I used to play a game called “Run for your life” in the swamp across the street from my house. With a name like that we had to run, jump, hide, climb, and crawl any which way possible to escape from the opposite team. Nowhere was safe. If we ever had to make a break for it across a mud field, speed was no longer going to be part of the game plan.

I kicked my formerly black boots against a tree to get some of the mud off, and carried on.

Strange as it might sound, not more than 5 minutes later I started to hear voices. They weren’t in my head, and oddly enough it sounded like a conversation between two people, and as far as I could tell I wasn’t going crazy talking to myself, and Ken was still out of site down the trail behind me.

Oh shit, this could be bad. There weren’t supposed to be people back here.

Oh my God, could I have stumbled across a marijuana plantation? I turned quickly back and forth to look around me scouring the plant life to see if there was any Pakalolo growing nearby. Damn it, where the hell was Ken? I couldn’t see anything unusual, but I wasn’t about to fool around in a chance meeting with some dangerous crunchie underworld types. So, I flipped my ice axe around to hold it by the shaft, which I had been holding by the head as a walking stick. I pulled the axe leash tight around my wrist and gripped it hard like a battle axe made for swinging.

The voices were getting louder but they weren’t yelling, they were talking to each other. That could only mean one thing; they were somewhere very close. “How the hell did I get myself into this shit”, I thought.

Just then, coming around the brush about 30 feet ahead of me two men stepped out from under a branch leaning over the trail and came into view. They momentarily stopped talking looked at each other, then right at me and started heading my way. With my axe hidden behind my back, I mustered up some of my mom’s polite British charm, and hoped for the best, but I was completely ready to start swinging.

“Hey guys, how are you doing?” I asked.

Still watching me, they took a few steps closer. “Are you with the New Englanders here to climb Wai’ale’ale for the Alzheimer’s Association?”

“Ah, yeah?”

“Are you Simone?”

“I am Simone.”

“We’ve been looking for you”.

I loosened the grip on my axe ...........“What?”



World up,
Enzo
(to be continued)

Coming Down The Line.

Quick note to say stay tuned. Over the next week or so I'm going to begin putting down an account of the expeditions - starting with Wai'ale'ale.

Lead Heart

Purdys NY
May 2007

I know you know me...and I see your disappointment in me.
I can almost hear the wings beating as time flies away with you.
Damn it I think . . . Let her go!
My heart falls like lead, and it feels like vertigo pulling me over an edge. I’ve been on the edge of a cliff that dropped more than 3000 feet and being there was less scary than this moment.

3:30am and you just wandered down the hall in the dark past my old room calling my name asking if I left you.
“No mom, I’m here lying down.”
“Oh...are you going?”

I didn’t need the lights on to see that the world was going to change.

“No”

“Where’s Jen?”
“She’s at home, because she has to go to work in the morning.”

“Oh...is she coming to get you?”
“No she can’t, she has to work. Why don’t you lay here next to me and we’ll sleep for a few more hours.”

“Ok....I have my pajamas on.”
“I know....Let’s just lie down. Let’s just close our eyes and I’ll hold your arm and put my hand on your cheek, so you can see I’m still here.”

“Where are you going?”
“I’m going to stay here with you for a while.”

“And then what?”
“I need to go to work in the morning then Luca will come for you at lunch time.”

“Can I come to work with you?”
I could hear in the sound of her voice that she was disappointed and upset.
“No, mom but Luca will see you at lunch and Dan will come by at dinner.”

“Oh. . .Where’s Jen?”

Seeing her forget over and over again, then not understand why someone needs to do the things they need to do must tear my dads heart out every morning. It must feel almost criminal. I would imagine it's something like the feeling a parent must get when they're leaving their baby with someone and they try to get out the door but the baby crys from behind them and says;

"Don't go! Don't leave me alone. Come back. Can I come with you? Stay here. I don't want you to go!"

Just the sound of the words, and the expression on their faces make you want to turn around and stay home forever, but work needs to be done, and bills need to be paid, so you force yourself to close the door and go. I just don't know how my dad can do it every morning, and every night when it crushes my brothers and I to see her so disappointed, and feel so lonely.

Why does this have to happen to people?

I don’t know if I’m strong enough to stand when my lead heart and vertigo pull me down.


////////////////

The photo was taken in New Jersey around this period in time. My Team mate Cy Maramangalam (TCH-I & TCH-III) and I went down to speak at one of the Genesis Senior Centers. In the photo Cy is on the left, I'm in the back right next to Anjanette and my mom is in the middle of us all.

My Team has a Blogger page too!

For anyone wanting to drop by "my Teams" Blogger page you can search the Regulars on Blogger or try searching "Conquering Alzheimer's & Parkinson's One Mountain at a Time". If you look at the list of followers to my "I Am The Army of Change" blog, you'll also see the Double-X; that's my teams blog page.

That blog is open to my entire team for posts.

World up,
E

I was a complete beginner, but that's no excuse.

December 18, 2002

I was driving up I-684 with my dad and brothers to look at a piece of property my family was thinking about developing. I remember it was grey skies, and a little on the cool side but not all out cold. It may even have snowed further upstate a bit later in the day. We didn’t get too far under way when my dad said “You’re mom and I went to see the doctor to check on some things and he said that your mom has Alzheim”.

So I asked “Do you mean Alzheimer’s, like the disease Nonna Francis had?” and he said yes. As I would notice over the next few years my dad didn’t like saying the word “Alzheimer’s” completely, so it would most often be cut short into “Alzheim”. Of course he knows it, and he knows just how to say it, after all he works in a hospital, but it’s almost as if he wouldn’t officially recognize the disease as an adversary by saying its name completely.

“So what do we do? I’m sure there’s a hospital that can take care of that.” I said. We talked about it for a few minutes more, but that was really about the size of it on the topic of Alzheimer’s as we drove on to check out the land further North in the next county. I was pretty sure I could go home and look around on the computer to find a hospital that could heal people with Alzheimer’s.

At the end of the day, I found myself back in my apartment searching the internet for a place which specialized in curing people with Alzheimer’s. Almost immediately I started seeing the results coming back with statements like “There is no cure for Alzheimer’s Disease”. But then I thought, well that’s not good, but at the same time having Alzheimer’s is not so bad, it just means my mom will be more forgetful than normal. When I was in college, my grandmother in England had it and she was forgetful as well but as far as I knew she got by on her own until she was older. In the last few years of her life she went on to live in a home, but I just figured it was a typical senior home. The Atlantic Ocean seemed to be an insulator between me and my grandmother, and I guess I never quite got a chance to see her struggle with this disease. So consequentially I never learned, and I never cared enough to do something about it.

To this day it bothers me to no end, to know how I dishonored my grandmother by not caring enough to learn what Alzheimer’s was, and how it devastated her life. The best way to describe me at the time was “Ignorant”.

As I searched the net for more and more information on Alzheimer’s my hopes dropped further and further into an abyss and my mind began to drown in thoughts that this disease was worse than I ever imagined. This disease was actually a killer, and unfortunately for my mom and my dad (as the future care giver) it was not going to be very merciful. There was going to be no quick and painless moment where one minute she would be here and the next she’d be gone. This was going to be a long slow ride down hill to the end.

You can’t imagine how mad I was to find out this was what my mother had in store. My mom was the valedictorian of her nursing class, she was ultra smart and aced just about every exam she ever laid her eyes on, and Alzheimer’s was going to steal her ability to think??? Alzheimer’s was going to rob her memory??? Alzheimer’s was ultimately going to take her life??? What a terrible waste. Why???

I like to tell people that my mannerisms are probably 98% English and 2% Sicilian, but the more I learned how dark the horizon looked for my mom…the more I wanted to take this disease down. This disease pushing all the worst Sicilian buttons, and who knows more about revenge than a Sicilian? In my mind it came knocking on the wrong family’s door this year. But, what good was seeing any of this slowly oncoming sadness, or knowing how the world lacked the options in dealing with it if I didn’t know where to go with it myself or what to do next? I felt like an island with miles upon miles of empty ocean around me and I was going nowhere fast.

In early 2003 my Father-in-Law was diagnosed with Parkinson’s Disease which was also relatively unknown to me. He seemed to do really well and at the time I don’t even recall being able to notice it. No one seemed too concerned at first, because to most of us his movements didn’t look anything like those of Michael J. Fox. For a long while the family didn’t quite believe the diagnosis, and I can’t really say I know what actions my in-laws were taking to remedy it. But, again I went on the internet and started to look up information on Parkinson’s Disease, and quickly began seeing most of the same red flags I saw in my searches for Alzheimer’s. More often than not each entry was accompanied by the words “There is no cure for Parkinson’s Disease” somewhere in the web site.

I thought to myself “What is going on? How is everyone falling apart, and why are they still so young? Doesn’t this stuff usually affect older people?”
Ignorance strikes again.

In 2004, I was a complete beginner. Between the end of 2002 and 2004 I lulled around like most people doing little to nothing, as if I were resigned to my moms condition being quite unfortunately her fate, and my Father-in-Laws condition being something he (and we) would have to deal with in time.

I knew nothing of fund raising, networking, and raising awareness on behalf of a charitable organization. I knew even less about terminology, treatments, drugs, key individuals, and current events related to Alzheimer’s Disease and Parkinson’s Disease. What do charities for these diseases actually do? What would I possibly do for a charity? I felt very very very intimidated about stepping into an arena to which I was a stranger on all accounts, but fear was not enough to cage the inner feeling that something needed to be done to fight these diseases.
My over abundance of uneasy feelings and unanswerable questions were weighing on my mind along with the only four things I knew for sure. My Grandmother had passed away due to Alzheimer’s Disease. My mother now has it. My father-in-law has Parkinson’s Disease. And, someday I hope to have children who I’d like to spare even the slightest chance of ever suffering from these diseases.
What next? What do I do? Where do I go from here? Where’s the starting line in this race for the cure?

The idea’s for things to do to honor my relatives while raising awareness came and went. For some strange reason at the time I didn’t even know there were such things as the “Alzheimer’s Memory Walk”, and the “Parkinson’s Unity Walk”. Through-out life I’ve always preferred doing things my own way anyway, even if they were going to take longer, be harder, and come with loads of mistakes, pitfalls, and little to no guidance for me to follow. I’d learn.

I’ve always been a bit of a romantic, and loved the idea behind adventure – Big Adventure.

Being a kid from Lexington Avenue in Mount Kisco which is a very working class town in Westchester County NY, my family never really had much while growing up. I got all the newest (yet very inexpensive) clothes, and they would get handed down to my brothers holes and all then down to my cousin. That’s just the way it was and I didn’t know there was any other way. We lived across the street from a swamp, and next door to a bar with a parking lot right outside my bedroom window. People would come out drunk looking for their way home and knock on my windows and yell out side while my brothers and I shared the same bedroom trying to sleep. But, what happened outside the walls at night didn’t matter much. On the inside our walls were wallpapered with prints of Spanish Galleons, which could easily stir my imagination for adventure. There was a green book about Robin Hood, and picture books with artwork by Da Vinci & Michelangelo in them. There was a classical guitar hanging by a string from a nail on my wall. There were KISS albums! All of them were scratched, but still taking my constant daily abuse on our little closable white record player with its orange handle. I looked at all the things in my bedroom and thought they were great. Someday I’m going to grow up and sail to other places in the world, and I’ll play guitar and I’ll look at the buildings and art work by these icons, and I’ll do all this with my family and my friends. I thought everyone loved galleons, and the thought of a great adventure. I thought everyone loved heroes as much as I did. I thought everyone liked classical guitars and KISS. Also almost without saying, who in the world could possibly not idolize famous artists like Da Vinci & Michelangelo.

You’re probably thinking, where am I going with this?

The common threads are, Big, Larger-than-Life, Romance, Heroes, Adventure, Doing things that were good, admiring people’s talents and super human efforts and of course music.

In 2002, a few months before my mother was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, I was standing in Borders Book Store at a magazine rack one day when a thought came to me while looking through a magazine. I was hooked instantaneously. It was like being hit by lightning. There it was, an “unfinished” romantic adventure, a goal, something to work toward, and bonus…it was larger-than-life. But, as life and luck would have it, I had no money to do this and no time to take off work. But regardless dare to dream, I researched everything I could about this idea for the next few years.

Months came and went, I talked to people about it, I thought about it, I was all over the internet learning everything I could about it. I ate, drank and slept it. But, without having a “good” reason, I never really ever had the cause to move ahead with it for reasons other than “I want to do it”, and that would be extremely selfish motivation, and I really hate selfishness. Looking back, I think that’s probably why it just stagnated and never quite moved forward into reality.

Flash forward to 2004, and I was married, still living in Mount Kisco, and still not the most wealthy person in the world. Seeing an episode of “Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous” was not something you were ever going to see featuring an Apprentice of Architecture like me, so paycheck to paycheck was basically the way of life.

I remember thinking there must also be lots of people in my living situation out there all struggling to get by, and coping with family members who had fallen ill with Alzheimer’s and or Parkinson’s. I thought they must know that raising funds is the only way to fuel research, but how could I get them to make contributions. How could I inspire them to give a little of their livelihood to drive progress in research? What could I give them in exchange for making a donation? Maybe I could create an event that would unfold like a story? Maybe by following the story, and the characters in it they would be moved enough to think “Hell if they can do all this just to raise awareness for these diseases, then I’m going to make a donation to their charities, and then maybe someday I’ll join them.”

It was the notion that people loved to hear about a great adventure and a good cause that was mingling in the recesses of my mind for quite some time as I tried to think of ways I might be creative in designing a charity / fund raising event on behalf of Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s.

As is sometimes the case life throws you a clue when you least expect it. Sometimes you miss it, and sometimes you don’t. Other times it sends you someone who whispers the right words into your ears. They plant the seeds of an idea. They make the connections you were missing. They turn on the big engines you never knew you had and all of a sudden the motors running, and you’re in the drivers seat moving at light speed toward your goals.

There was a person like that for me, and I’ll tell you about her later.
But, I will say that from the word go I did not waste another minute of another day. I had aligned my mind, my charity, and my great adventure to conquer the “Wettest Place on Earth” with my desire to champion a cure for Alzheimer’s Disease.
I know you probably picked up on the fact I just mentioned Alzheimer’s but not Parkinson’s. I’ll explain more in my next post.

So my people ,my family, my friend and my fellow advocates:
In closing… the moral of this still unfinished (actually just beginning) story is that we need to “Act”.

We absolutely cannot sit by and hope that someone else is out there raising awareness and funds for a cure to the disease which impact our families. We the people need to do this.

Fund Raising is the life blood of Research. Without it work on research will not be done.

We might take quite a while to find just the right way for us to raise awareness, or we might know in a heart-beat, but regardless think about it day in and day out until you decided how you will make a difference. Every effort counts no matter how large or small. Doing nothing gets us nowhere, but giant leaps and baby steps move us forward toward our goal to help find the cures for Alzheimer’s Disease and Parkinson’s Disease.

So my friends, think hard. Look around you. Choose something. Design an awareness / fund raising project of your own. Volunteer for a charity. Read, Listen & Learn the vocabulary used in discussions about these diseases. Don’t be intimidated by not knowing something, just try your best at learning something new every day or every week. Talk to the people around you, friends, family, even strangers, and tell them about what it’s like to have or live with one of these diseases. Pull the right strings & touch their heart, so that the next time someone asks them for a contribution for research…they know a little about your experience, and they’ll give.

Become an advocate.

We the people need your voice to be heard. We the people need your story to be told. We the people need your energy and your free time. We the people need you to try.

You don’t have to be rich. You don’t have to be well known. You don’t need a reason to do something good. Just try.

As always: No experience necessary…you can learn as you go along.

World up,
Enzo

My self-taught formula for success:
“Failure + Failure + Failure + Never Giving Up = Success.”

Step up, Step Back, Step Ahead

Just a quick note for those of you who stop by this BLOG. Although the posts are all going to be entered in chronological order, the content will jump around quite a bit. I'll be thinking out loud in the present tense on occasion, looking back to past events on others, and planning ahead in yet others.

Some of you have emailed me via Myspace or Facebook saying you would get involved in the effort to raise awareness and funds for Alzheimer's and Parkinson's Disease research & care giver programs, but you don't know how. The reality is no one does when they first start. Just go ahead and try. Taking the first step is the most important part of becoming an advocate for the cures you seek.

The idea here is really just to show you how little I knew about all this when I started, how I learned, how I made mistakes, and how I am learning to become a more affective advocate by trying.

If I could do anything beyond this it would be to make you believe that you are the source of all the change we seek. We need you to act...not watch and hope others are doing for you. You can do it. We can do it together.

Together is ONE.

World up,
Enzo

The beginning of the Army of Change.

Tuesday September 8th. 2009

Words. Let’s see there is, motivation, purpose, drive, dreams, goals, determination, and a thousand other words. They all move us.

When a man knows what he wants, the world has a way of stepping aside for him. If he has bled enough for his cause, it just may let him have it. While I have personally never lacked for any of the words above, what I want is something else. I want something more. I want something animalistic and primitive.

In the 1990's Alzheimer’s Disease had killed my grandmother, and I did nothing.
Now Alzheimer’s has it’s grip on my mother, but I know better.

I've since learned that I can’t afford to make the same mistake twice. As luck might have it, now Alzheimer's Disease may be biting at my heels as well.

As for Parkinson’s Disease, there was an iron man who is my father-in-law. Mind you, he's still made of iron, but Parkinson’s Disease seems to delight in making him rust.

Of my relatives, some are the forgotten and some are the still. For this, I want revenge. For this, I promise to build and army of people big enough to force Alzheimer’s Disease and Parkinson’s Disease into extinction.

August 8th. 2006
Mont Blanc Tacul, on the French & Italian Border (13,937ft.)

Today is the beginning of the end. As I stand here alone on the summit of Mont Blanc Tacul listening to the wind hum past me I look East into the darkness draped over Europe. With each step the snow creeks and squeals like the sound of a steel hull flexing under a heavy sea. What a horribly lonely sound it has. It sounds hollow, or maybe that’s just the way I feel right now.

Like the years leading up to this, none of this has been easy. I’ve been moving for hours, and finally I've reached the top. I stop and fall onto my knees to plant my mountain axe in the snow before me. The leash, I lay over it like a thin red cloak, then take hold of the axe with both hands as if I was kneeling at a pew. I put my head down and stopped.

I just knelt there listening to myself breath. The sound was roaring as it reverberated inside the high collars of my black hood. The smell and taste from my mouth was rancid, and I could begin to feel the saliva was coagulating into strings, which were doing their best to sew my lips shut like a dead man. I could tell I was starting to dehydrate, and of course the sun was only just about to rise.

I knew it was coming.

It would be "the end" and "the beginning" all at once, and then there it was like a fire starting to burn on the edge of the earth. The light began to spill over the horizon and it was rolling like a tsunami across an ocean of clouds. In a matter of moments it had over taken country after country until I was hit. Elysium.

It was destiny. I know this day has been a thousand years in the making. It is now as it was in the time of my ancestors and I honestly believe I could feel them course through me on that mountain top. I stood up, pulled my axe out of the snow, leashed it to my wrist and swung it in the air. This is my war.

I thought to myself Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s while you may have come to take us, you might try, but you will loose. I am more than a Simone. In my blood there is the strength of ancient Chadwick’s, and a Chadwick cannot be beaten.

This story can end only two ways.

I win and 30 million people around the world are liberated from the devastation Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s have waiting for them. Or you win. You may steal my mind, and my last breath, but I'll go down fighting. Regardless, I’m never giving up.

For the sake of the children I'll someday have, I won’t count on losing. Alzheimer's and Parkinson's Disease...your day has come to be conquered.

Vincent Roland Simone