Everyone with Parkinson’s has their own personal Michael J. Fox.

My MJF is the guy crossing the border on a bicycle with a bag of sand.

I live in Canada about 6 miles from the U.S. border, in a rural area where there are so few cars, the border crossing is closed at night. Local folks get high paying jobs manning the border station when it is open; they sit and read books and watch TV while waiting for the next vehicle, which is usually a farm couple in a Ford F-150 on their way to Plattsburgh to shop at Wal-Mart. That’s about as exciting as it gets in this neck of the woods.

One morning about 6 a.m., the border crossing had just opened for the day, a well-dressed man on a speed bicycle, like you see in the races, comes pedaling up. He has a bulky burlap bag on a small carrying rack attached to the rear fender.

Do you have anything to declare?

No.

What’s in the bag?

Sand.

Sand?

Yes, I am building a beach on Lake Champlain, and I prefer the quality of Canadian sand.

Yeah, right. Get off the bike and bring the bag inside.

The border guards open the bag and pour the sand out onto the table. They expect to find drugs or diamonds hidden in the sand. But they find nothing. They have to scoop the sand back into the burlap bag, and the mysterious cycler – certainly not a local boy – rides off into the mighty U.S. of A., with his bag of 100% pure Canadian sand.

Must be some kind of a nut.

Next morning, same guy rides up on his bicycle, with another bag of sand. Poured out on the table; the bag contains nothing but sand.

Next morning, same thing.
Every morning, same thing.
Another bag of sand, every day.

Now, the local men and women with the job at the border crossing are not stupid. They figure the man on the bike figures that they will get tired of checking out the daily bag of sand, and just wave him through, and THEN the bike rider will use the bag of sand to hide drugs or diamonds or SOMETHING.

It makes no sense otherwise. So they check his bag of sand every day; day after day; each day starts with the bicycle rider and another bag of sand.
They never did figure it out, but the answer was right in front of their eyes.

He was smuggling bicycles.

mmmmmmmmmmmmmmm
That’s my own personal MJ Fox.

He is on the side of the angels.

So are we. We have different roles – we are street fighters and citizen scientists, and seriously ill fed-up grouches, devoid of resources other than our monologues and dialogues and home remedies; MJF is recognized world-wide, and rare would be the person at any level of power who would not take his call. In the script, MJF plays the role of MJF. He does it to perfection, even without rehearsals.

The roles are different, but we are all working on the same script. It’s a script that begins with suffering and anguish, and ends with the victory of mankind over the curse of brain and neuro diseases.

Although we know the beginning and the ending of the script, we are in the middle of it and have to write the next chapters. With different roles, but keeping an eye on the goal. Articulating strategies and scenarios would help the costume department to be prepared.

When the war against Parkinson’s is over, I will return to civilian life and make a fortune marketing little plastic MJF’s that you can put on the dashboard of your car; they will light up when you accelerate. It’ll go gorilla in the marketplace.
But first we have to fix the Parkinson’s problem, and the script has to have better roles for people with Parkinson’s, if it is ever to make sense as a script.

Lights! – On.
Camera! – Panoramic with close-ups.
Action! – If not now, when? If not us, who?