Originally posted: July 2025
In late July 2023, ex-Wheat
Ridge Farmers star wrestler Skip Mondragon (left) and I attended the 50th-year reunion of our WRHS Class of 1973. We conversed, reminisced, and caught up. Three days later, Skip and I met for breakfast at "Sunrise, Sunset" in Wheat
Ridge. Skip was an Army physician for 26 years in
his post-Wheat Ridge career. I call him "Colonel Potter." He wanted to ask me something away from our high school
classmates before he returned to his home in Midlothian, Texas. Seconds after we sat down, Skip said "Grace." (Skip always says "Grace."} Then he turned to me. The menus remained closed. Memories can be selective and tricky, especially two years later. But the way I remember
it, Skip asked me, "You know you have Parkinson's Disease... right?" He wasn't being flippant. After what he had seen and heard during our interaction at the reunion, he wanted
to make sure I knew. I didn't. I was stunned.
It showed. Skip then said something along the lines of, "I guess you didn't know
you have Parkinson's Disease." Skip recalls the conversation as less blunt, with him saying: "I'm sorry, buddy, but I'm pretty sure you have
Parkinson's."
However
he worded it, he was correct. That was two years ago. I've gotten over the
shock.
There is no single model of how Parkinson's affects those who have it, whether in the short- or long-term. That morning, Skip expained that there is no simple "yes" or "no" lab test
for Parkinson's. It's a "clinical diagnosis," more about checking off symptoms until mounting evidence makes the
conclusion inescapable.
Skip later
told me that he had spotted me displaying several Parkinson's symptoms as I attended the WRHS reunion. "I noted the way you walked, kind of stiffly,"
he said. "Your expression was kind of flat." He also brought up "Cogwheel Rigidity," which causes jerky
movements. My steps indeed had become halting and tentative,
especially in my first few steps. Also, my left arm was stiff and inflexible much of the time, hanging bent at my elbow as I walked. Looking back, my guess that that
my Parkinson's "onset" was in 2020 or 2021, but that my horrible right knee distracted me. I underwent what then was primitve ACL surgery twice more than 50 years ago, once
during my sophomore year at South Eugene High and again as I entered my senior year at Wheat Ridge. Unsurprisingly, the knee
got worse -- and worse -- over the years and. I tended to attribute my problems to that issue, even as they became more glaring.
A knee replacement seemed inevitable, though I wasn't excited by the prospect. Skip recommended that I see a neurologist as soon as possible. Dr. Mondragon had seen a
lot in his military career -- including Parkinson's. And he thought I had it. I made an
appointment to see a Kaiser Permanente neurologist in early September. or about five weeks after the Wheat Ridge reunion.
Neurologists' service are in great demand. I was fortunate to get in that soon. While I waiting, I also attended the South Eugene Class of '73
reunion in mid-August. There caan't be very many of us who were both a [South Eugene] Axeman and a [Wheat Ridge] Farmer in
high school. I told many of my Eugene classmates -- the "kids"
I grew up with -- about the tentative clinical diagnosis. On September 5,
the Kaiser Permanente neurologist agreed with Skip's Parkinson's verdict. I have periodically visited the specialist
ever since for observation, guidance and treatment. I'm on the aggressive anti-Parkinson's medication regimen of Carbidopa-Levodopa. I take as many as
seven pills a day. I consider it trying to hold off the Parkinson's disorder and not waving a magic wand. Levodopa is
converted to Dopamine in the brain. Carbidopa won't allow Levodopa to be broken down before it gets there.
Right away, I asked the neurologist how bad this was. He said, "Well, it's not good, and you'll be dealing with
it the rest of your life."
So I, too, am fighting the neurodegenerative
disorder that remains both menacing and a mystery. I've followed the
struggles of Parkinson's patient torchbearers of past, present and future, among them Michael J. Fox, Alan Alda, Dave
Parker, snd Muhammad Ali. For example, I emphatically nod when reading of Alda's dicussion of amazingly vivid technicolor
dreams that still seem real after awakening. (They're nothing bizarre.). I have them, too. I also have a hard time shaking
the feeling that someone is lurking beyond my left shoulder ... even when I'm alone. My neurologist notes that all of that
is typical, too. Since the "confirmation" of my Parkinson's
two years ago, I always have opened my teaching semesters at MSU Denver by making
sure my students are aware of the situation. I've told them tf my left hand occasionally shakes and if I don't sprint around
the classroom, that's what it is. There is nothing to hide. In my view, the Parkinson effects have been relatively minimal
and mitigated. Can that last? I'm not naive. We'll find out. So far, I feel as if, with help, I'm holding off the demons. I'm thanking MSU Denver and Scoot Education for supporting me and other disabled members of the
student bodies and faculties. I now check the "disabled" box because Parkinson's is on the list and I'm not ashamed
of it. I don't need pity or favors. I'm convinced that few, if any, of my students are struck by anything significanttly out
of the "ordinary." Thanks, Skip. It was a
fortuitous meeting. Once a Farmer, Always a Farmer.
Skip's Story Until the reunion, Skip and I hadn't seen each
other for two or three years, but we had stayed in touch.
Skip was stationed in the Middle East as far back as Desert Shield in 1990-91 and as late as with
the 41st Combat Support Hospital in Iraq in 2003-04.
I tracked him down in the Middle East to interview him for a few columns over the years. I pictured him holding a
huge Army field phone as he filled me in.
In retirement, Skip stays busy with part-time administrative work and is
a succesful motivational speaker. He is known for his 2020 book, "Wrestling Depression is not for Wimps: Lessons from
an Amateur Wrestler's Fight to Triumph Over Depression."
He started out at Notre Dame on an Army ROTC scholarship before getting his medical degree from Oral Roberts.
He went on active duty in 1989, assigned to the Reynolds Army Community Hospital at Fort Sill, Oklahoma. It was the start
of a gratifying military medical career that his fellow Wheat Ridge Farmers followed from afar.
A side note: Timing it for as soon as possible during the academic summer
break, I underwent a knee replacement in late May. I am finally rid of the damn original. I'm hoping to teach this fall minus
the limps and winces. I'm also hoping that I'll be able to all that will me get in better condition ... to focus on and attack
the Parkinson's. Two years
and 20 pounds ago, I'm with Skip Mondragon at our momentous breakfast meeting at "Sunrise, Sunset." IIn late 2023, Skip
was in town visiting family when he joined our usual "Farmers Night Out" group at Amici's. From left: Skip, Reid
Gamberg, Chuck Rasey, me, Keith Lening. Sadly, our leader and my college roomate, Chuck Griffith, passed
awayat age 61 in 2016. 
Here I am as the Farmers' catcher and co-captain in our 1973 senior season.
Note my right knee. I already had undergone major knee surgeries, in November 1970
and September 1972. I'm wearing the infamous Lenox-Hill knee brace, invented by the New York hospital for Joe Namath. It did not help me hit the curve ball.
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