Footprints: A Memoir

By Kirk Hall

This memoir is a collection of stories and thoughts that I had written for my sons. I wanted them to have a chance to read some interesting and, possibly, entertaining anecdotes from my life before and after meeting their mother. I also wanted to share some important things I have observed and learned along the way, including the impact Parkinson's disease has had on my life. I would love to know more about my ancestors, so if any of this material gets passed down to future generations, I think that would be great.

My parents started this idea by videotaping my mom’s father in his elder years telling stories from years gone by. I have a copy of this tape. I did some videotaping with my mom a few years ago and have preserved that on DVDs. I am choosing this format because I enjoy writing. All but the epilogue of this memoir was written between January and October 2009. The epilogue was added in June 2012 and April 2013. I am publishing this “lightly-edited” version for those who may have interest in knowing more about my life after reading any or all of my PD-related books. Additionally, I hope it might stimulate ideas for those who may be thinking about writing their own memoir.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Kirk Hall
• Release date: May 13, 2015
• ISBN: 9781311805843

Kirk Hall

Kirk Hall is a husband, father, and grandfather of six who lives in the Denver area. He has been an author and patient-perspective Parkinson’s advocate since 2011. His personal experience as a PWP includes participation in three area support groups, clinical research studies including two visits to the National Institute of Health’s National Institute of Neurological Disease & Stroke (NINDS), and joint presentations with movement disorder specialists to support groups sponsored by the Parkinson Association of the Rockies (PAR) and University of Colorado Hospital. Kirk has been a guest speaker at the Muhammad Ali Parkinson Center in Phoenix and has been the subject of television, radio, and newspaper interviews.He has an undergraduate BS in business from Ohio State and an MBA in Human Resource Development from SUNY at Buffalo. He and his wife of 43 years, Linda, are Parkinson Disease Foundation Clinical Research Advocates. Kirk’s Shaky Paws Grampa blog, which includes articles about his writing, advocacy activities, PD-related subjects, and personal journey, can be found at http://shakypawsgrampa.blogspot.com/.

Book preview

FOOTPRINTS

A Memoir

Kirk W. Hall

Copyright © 2009 Kirk W. Hall

Distributed by Smashwords

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the prior permission of the author.

Ebook formatting by www.ebooklaunch.com

Other books by Kirk Hall

Window of Opportunity: Living with the reality of Parkinson’s and the threat of dementia (North Slope Publishing, 2014)

Carson and His Shaky Paws Grampa (Innovo Publishing, 2011)

Carina and Her Care Partner Gramma (Innovo Publishing, 2013)

(For more information or to order books, visit www.shakypawsgrampa.com)

Dedication

For my sons, Kevin and Brian

Lives of great men all remind us

We can make our lives sublime,

And, departing, leave behind us

Footprints on the sands of time.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (excerpt from A Psalm of Life)

~

Some people come into our lives and quickly go.

Some move our souls to dance.

They awaken us to new understanding with the passing whisper of their wisdom.

Some people make the sky more beautiful to gaze upon.

They stay in our lives for awhile, leave footprints on our hearts, and we are never, ever the same.

Anonymous

~

One night I dreamed I was walking along the beach

with my Lord.

Many scenes from my life flashed across the sky.

In each scene I noticed footprints in the sand.

Sometimes there were two sets of footprints, other times there was one set of footprints.

The Lord replied, The times when you have seen only one set of footprints in the sand is when I carried you.

Mary Stevenson (excerpt from Footprints in the Sand)

Table of Contents

Home Locations and Dates

Introduction

Chapter 1: The Early Years

Chapter 2: Passions

Chapter 3: Falling in Love

Chapter 4: Love and Life Through the Years

Chapter 5: Career

Chapter 6: Perspectives

Chapter 7: Health

Chapter 8: Faith

Chapter 9: Guidelines

Chapter 10: My Boys and Me

Chapter 11: Finish the Race Well

Epilogue

Home Locations and Dates

1. Cleveland, OH (born at Booth Memorial Hospital) November 12, 1948

2. Willoughby-on-the-Lake, OH (Peach Blvd.) 1948-1949

3. Mentor-on-the-Lake, OH (wagon wheel house) 1949

4. Mentor, OH (where we lived with Nikki) 1949-1952

5. Cuyahoga Falls, OH (nursery school and part of kindergarten) 1952

6. North Canton, OH (rest of kindergarten and part of first grade) 1953-1954

7. South Euclid, OH (rest of first grade-second grade) 1954-1956

8. Uniontown, OH (third grade/Uniontown elementary, fourth-eleventh grade/Green

9. school system) 1956-1965

10. Richmond Heights, OH (twelfth grade) 1965-1966

11. Columbus (OSU)/Berea, OH (my parent’s home) 1966-1970

12. Ft. Benning, GA 1970-1971 (three months)

13. Tampa, FL 1971 (one month)

14. Sarasota, FL 1971-1972

15. Gainesville, FL 1972-1973

16. Charlotte, NC (two different apartments) 1973-1974

17. Grand Rapids, MI 1974 (one month)

18. Clinton Township, MI 1974-1978

19. Milford, MI 1978-1980

20. East Amherst, NY 1980-1982

21. Oakland, NJ 1982-1994

22. Monument, CO 1994-2009

23. Highlands Ranch, CO 2009-

INTRODUCTION

This is a collection of stories and thoughts that I have written for my sons. The idea behind this is that I would like them to have a chance to read some interesting and, possibly, entertaining anecdotes from my life before and after meeting their mother. I may also subject them to some important things I have observed and learned along the way. They are the intended audience for these writings, though they may find parts of it to be something they would like to share with their children in years to come. I would love to know more about my ancestors, so if any of this material gets passed down to future generations, I think that would be great.

My parents started this idea by videotaping my mom’s father in his elder years telling stories from years gone by. I have a copy of this tape. I did some videotaping with my mom a few years ago and have preserved that on DVDs. My sisters and I all have copies. I am choosing this format because I enjoy writing.

All but the epilogue of this memoir was written between January and October 2009. The epilogue was added in June 2012 and April 2013. I am thinking of publishing this lightly-edited version, not because my life is likely to be interesting to anyone outside my family, but because it might stimulate ideas for those who may be thinking about writing their own memoir.

Chapter 1

THE EARLY YEARS

Janis, Linda, & Kirk /Christmas 1951

My Family

My mom (Wilda Christine Watson) and dad (Warren William Herman Hall, but his family called him Jimmy) met at Collinwood High School on the east side of Cleveland, Ohio. My dad had two younger sisters (Carol & Diane) and a younger brother (Windsor). We called his parents Mama and Grampa Sid. Dad was a year older than my mom and, at some point, he asked her out on a date. After graduation, my dad took a job in Schenectady and wrote my mom to tell her he had bought a new set of golf clubs. Apparently she was feeling neglected and told him she hoped he and his golf clubs were very happy together. He got the message and they quickly became engaged. They were married before he left for the war, where he was a staff sergeant and aircraft mechanic in the Army Air Corps, stationed in Egypt and, later, in Italy.

Mom & Dad

When he came home, he and my mom moved to Columbus, where my dad worked and obtained his business degree at OSU My mom’s brother Uncle Don lived with them and also got his engineering degree. My older sister, Linda, was born (at a hospital in Cleveland) while they were in Columbus. I came along two years and ten months later, and my younger sister, Janis, was born one year and two months later. Since their birthdays were early in the year and mine late, we ended up two grades apart in school.

My sisters are both very smart and avid readers. I grew up thinking they were smarter than me, and I was probably right. Linda was very independent and strong-willed. She bossed me around until I was about ten years old, when we had a fight that seemed to last for hours. This ended with no winner when both of us ran out of gas (similar to Gregory Peck and Charlton Heston in The Big Country) and we never fought again. However, she was still tougher and braver than I was, as she proved one day in high school when she went down the street and called out a girl who had been giving her a hard time. The girl backed down, which was undoubtedly smart on her part. Linda never took any crap from anybody. She was also gifted creatively and enjoyed writing and drawing. She was selected to attend the Girl’s State Event at the state capital in her junior year and was voted Most Likely To Succeed by her class at graduation. She married a ruggedly handsome agriculture major at OSU, Jim Szabo, and spent years by his side as he pursued his passion for farming before passing in 2006. She has devoted her life to raising her four wonderful children (Cathy, JR, Michelle, and Michael) and working in childcare. We share a love for plants and landscaping; she has recently become a master gardener. She lives in Franklin, TN, and does a great job looking after my mom, who now lives in an assisted living facility nearby.

Janis was known in her younger years as Janis Ellen Hallbox (we aren’t sure where this nickname came from). We have home movies of her showing off her baton-twirling skills (she was quite good) and wearing a tutu. She was active in Girl Scouts and my mom was involved in the leadership of her group. They took a field trip by bus in 1964 to the World’s Fair in New York (located where the tennis U.S. Open is now held) and I went along (great fun to be surrounded by so many girls, though I probably didn’t admit it at the time). She and Linda were not as neat and organized by nature as my mom, dad, or me. You never knew what might be lurking or growing under her bed. She was very loving to me and continues to make me feel special to this day. It is her gift to reach out to and care for others. She is also an extraordinary mother who has raised two fantastic children (Lenore and Colin). She and Linda are similar in this respect, though their styles are very different, with Janis being much more overt in her caring. Janis was a huge Beatles fan (as was I), and this seemed to translate to her life as she ended up moving to England and marrying an Englishman, David Jarvis. They have lived for many years in North Olmsted, OH, the only members of our immediate family who remain in the Cleveland area.

The fact that my sisters grew up to be such consummate caregivers is no accident based on the way we were raised by mom. Don’t get me wrong, she was human and would occasionally lose it with us. However, she spent almost all of her waking hours doing things with or for us (and my father), like taking us swimming (sometimes twice a day). She was also reminiscent of a mother bear in that she buffered us (as well as she could) from a father who could be belligerent, temperamental, and domineering. At times it felt like we were all in a lifeboat together just trying to ride out the storm. My mom’s gentle strength was invaluable during those times. She was raised in a very close and loving family that knew how to pull together and support each other during tough times. My grandparents (Nonny and Bapa) raised my Uncle Howard who had Down’s Syndrome from the time my mom was a teenager until he passed at thirty-nine. He was not expected to live beyond five. His relatively long life was a testament to the care he received. Another traumatic event occurred when Uncle Don died unexpectedly at only forty-nine years of age (at that time he was married to his second wife, Patty, and had two young children, Donnie & Chrissie, as well as his daughters from his first marriage, Kim Sue & Melissa). The strength of the family and their faith, in particular (which I have tried to model in later years), helped pull them through. Nonny also died unexpectedly in her eighties due to a reaction to medication. Bapa lived with my parents after this in Florida until he passed in his nineties.

My dad is a complicated subject. There are a lot of good memories of playing golf, baseball, football, tennis, and basketball together. He shared with me his love for gardening, plants, and landscaping that I carry with me today. He taught me the importance of trying to do whatever I did well without making me feel pressured. He was my biggest fan in Little League and in golf. We played endless rounds together at our home course, Mayfair, and enjoyed replaying many of the shots afterwards. He was very open in expressing his pride for my accomplishments in my career.

There was a dark side to my dad, however. Once I got into high school, he got mad at me more often. I know that happens in many father/son relationships as children start to seek their independence. In this case, it was clearly more than that. There was more stress and pressure in his work after we moved to Cleveland. Drinking also was a contributing factor. He mentioned to me in later years that he knew he was much more prone to temper tantrums after he