[Hoot Gibson]

I'm gonna take the mask off and be serious for just a moment. No role playing , no playing the bad guy. My family has a long history of leaving out of this world because of dementia. As a young lad of just six or seven, I can remember my great grandmother having to be  fed, cleaned, diapered, and cared for 24/7. My great grandfather was not a young man himself but he loved her with all his heart and did his best to care for her. But it was hard. Back then, before Alzheimer's was a thing, her condition was just called "hardening of the arteries." All I remember hearing from her was just nonsensical childlike babble, until she finally passed away when I was around eight. My grandmother (my great-grandmother's mother)  was showing signs of dementia before she passed away from a stroke.

Mom passed from a stroke back in the summer of '23, but over the year or so prior to her stroke,  she had begun getting very forgetful and repeating a lot of things she said.  She was definitely showing signs of losing herself.

Dad is about two and a half years older than former President, Joe Biden.  Like Mr Biden, dad also struggles with his mental acuity. He's not the same person he was just a few short years ago. To watch him the other night, for what seemed like thirty minutes , aimlessly wandering around the kitchen, looking to put utensils that had been put away just minutes before, was pretty heart wrenching.  Dad's confusion seems to worsen when the sun goes down. I've heard people even refers to Sundown Syndrome, where people with dementia issues tend to become more confused in the late afternoon or evening hours. I can tell you that it's a real thing.

And then there's me. The guy that plays a bad guy role but is really not a bad guy at all. I feed and care for between two and three dozen animals on nearly a daily basis. I even stop at restaurants just to feed strays. Animals are my heart. I sacrifice my time, energy, and finances to care for as many as I can. I support causes to help the homeless , the abused(children, women, the elderly).  Think of me as the board sadist, if you want, but I don't feel that is accurate. I'll be the first to admit that I do love animals more than I do most humans. If that's a terrible thing, then think of me as a terrible person.  Why do I say this?  Remember , dementia runs in my family. It's likely in the DNA code.  Great-grandmother, grandmother, mom, dad, and now... ME ??? 

I'm moving headlong into my sixties. I can see that not so magical 65 in full view now. I forget names that I shouldn't forget. I forget doctor appointments.  I lose my phone a couple times a week. The last time , some stranger brought the phone to me, after calling a number on the phone and finding out where I lived. Apparently, I had left the phone on the car and it had fallen on the side of the road. The same week, I lost a set of house keys ...TWICE. Both times I found them... once, on my street, just down from my house. The other time, on an adjacent street. A car had run over them and broken two of the eight or so keys. Again, apparently,  I had left them on the car and drove off.  Do I have an issue with the same debilitating condition that affected other family members? I don't know. But I worry. And I think I have reason to worry.

I sometimes brush it off as just having "too much on my plate, " at the present time. Maybe that's it. Maybe it's the curse of the DNA.  The first time that I really started to worry was when I forgot the name of someone I had dated and loved for several years. I was sitting in the Walmart parking lot and thinking about her and her child and realized, much to my shock and dismay,  that I had forgotten their names. These were two people I had known for years, and had been apart of their lives just a very few years prior.  I hope it's because I just stretch myself too thin, trying to do do much, in the time that I have. But, I worry. I'm not too young.

Now, the real reason I say all of this. Dementia is not something that's funny, or to belittle someone about, whether you like them or hate them. Joe Biden would not have been my #1 choice for president, nor would Kamala Harris. I think Biden did okay, and I think history will treat him pretty well. While he wasn't my all-time favorite, I just hope I have the mental faculties twenty years from now to perform as well as he did. I'm sure all of the jokes and hurtful things people  have said about his loss of mental acuity has been hard on his wife. I remember reading heartbreaking accounts of Ms. Reagan talking about the day when her beloved husband no longer recognized her. That had to be truly devastating. I was far from a Reagan fan but reading her account of that made me sad.

I know I play the heel role on here, and I do enjoy being Ric Flair or Roddy Piper, but even guys who play heels have feelings. As I watched my dad, now with a cane,  because of tired and broken knees , seemingly dazed and confused in the kitchen, it reminded me how sad my life is now compared to the time when my mom and dad, and grandparents , were all alive and making my sister and I the happiest kids alive. Life is different now. Now is a period in my life that I have trouble navigating, at times. I'm sad a lot of the time. Maybe, that too, is part of the onset of something horrible that will eventually take my mind from me.

There are those moments when I wish I did have something to cling to, outside of this earthly existence. Maybe then, I would , at least be able to deal with loss, and "the long goodbye" of loved ones with a bit more peace and comfort. Maybe being a rational thinker, which I highly prize,  has its own  pitfall , or two. Let's please not mic drop anyone's loss of mental faculties. We never know when that insidious monster may come knocking on our our on front door. I love you all.  Thanks for listening.

Now,  back to being the Nature Boy...

Whether you are a decent man in real life or not, how you present yourself online is the only way you will be judged online, and you are not a decent person online. I have no reason to take your word for anything because the online "you" is dishonest and unlikable. If that is how you seek to be perceived here, then you are a smashing success.

I hope that in person, you are exactly the man you described. I recently lost my mother to dementia and I don't wish that fate on anybody. There is nothing funny about dementia, we can agree on that.