Shawn P. Sullivan: It's 'tea time' for Dad in the fight against ALS

By Shawn P. Sullivan


Article Date: Thursday, July 24, 2008
Dad now has a golf tournament named after him.

It's true. Earlier this week he even wore a blue shirt that said "Gary Sullivan ALS Golf Tournament" on the sleeve.

Maybe you caught the blurb about it a few weeks ago here in the Sanford News. The Hissong Development Corporation will hold the first Gary Sullivan ALS Golf Tournament on Monday, August 4, to raise funds to help find a cure for Lou Gehrig's Disease and improve the quality of life for those who are battling it.

Dad has lived with ALS — amyotrophic lateral sclerosis — for five years now. According to the ALS Association, ALS is a "progressive, neurodegenerative disease that affects nerve cells in the brain and the spinal cord. Motor neurons reach from the brain to the spinal cord and from the spinal cord to the muscles throughout the body. The progressive degeneration of the motor neurons in ALS eventually lead to their death. When the motor neurons die, the ability of the brain to initiate and control muscle movement is lost. With voluntary muscle action progressively affected, patients in the later stages of the disease may become totally paralyzed." To make things worse, the disease spares the mind, which throughout the victim's decline remains sharp with thoughts and memories and feelings that cannot be expressed.

Dad's hanging in there. That's his line, and I repeat it for him whenever someone asks me how he's doing. The disease is progressing slowly, enough so that he has already beaten quite a few odds and still gets around by using a walker and a newfangled cane he bought from QVC.

The golf tournament, which will be held annually, will take place at the new Old Marsh Country Club in Wells. After the game, there will be a lobster clambake for dinner, a silent auction, and a live performance by a local band named "A Taste of Lace." If you enjoy golf and would like to play a game for a good cause, feel free to call Joan Tishkevich at 207-985-9345 or email her at jtishkevichhissongdevelopment.com.

Dad's humbled and honored to have an ALS fundraiser named after him, but he can't help but see the humor and irony of it all. He's never played golf his whole life, you see.

He says he's wondering if he needs to wear his best clothes for this fancy affair because he has heard there will be an afternoon "tea time." He also adds that he's glad he won't be the only Irishman participating in the fundraiser; he says he's really looking forward to meeting this guy "Mulligan."

My family and I will be there, adding to the irony. We've never played golf, either. My experience with golf is telling my neighbor, John, to have a good game when I catch him leaving for the Sanford Country Club some mornings. That, and watching "Caddyshack" at least once every two or three years.

Well, that's only partly true. I play minigolf a few times each summer. To date, my grandmother has beaten me and my daughter's racked up more holes-in-one.

Maddie owned the first few holes when we last went to the pitch-n-putt in South Sanford. I placed my ball at the foot of the first hole and told Maddie to watch. I tapped the ball with my miniature club, giving it a little too much oomph and making it bounce off the obstacle with a loud, dull, wooden clunk.

"See, the idea is to hit the ball, have it go through or around the obstacle, and fall into the hole on the other side," I told Maddie.

In other words, do as I say, not as I just did.

Maddie dropped her purple ball on the green turf. She pulled back and swung with a quick, random grace. The ball made a clean beeline to the hole and fell in.

I applauded and gave Maddie a high-five. That's my girl.

"Do you ever get a hole-in-one, Daddy?" she asked.

That's another story.

Both Dad and I lack the patience that golf requires. I can picture heading out onto a course early one morning and throwing myself into it at first. Then I can imagine myself growing restless by, say, the third hole or the end of the first hour, whichever came first.

Strangely enough, I can almost understand the zeal with which true believers play. I can appreciate how, day after day, summer after summer, golfers whittle away at their personal best with a mathematical exactness recorded on a score card. It's a pastime, yes, but it also seems a personal pursuit.

Who knows. Maybe you just read the sentences above, smirked and thought, "Ah, hey, this guy doesn't get it." After all, my neighbor John recently told me, "No matter how bad you play, you haven't had your worst game ever yet." He showed me the crumpled card from one of his recent games and one of the guys in his foursome did not even have a final score. "He has his own way of keeping score," John explained.

Dad will keep alive his lifelong streak of not playing golf when he attends the tournament on August 4. He'll be cruising along the links in a cart, his grandchildren in tow, handing out water bottles to the players and selling raffle tickets.

And he'll be sure to bask in the humor of it all. ALS is a deadly serious disease, but whenever possible humor can be used to deal with it. Dad has never, ever been an athlete; when he was eight years old, he failed to make the local baseball team, and his father was the Little League president who decided which players made the final cut. All of these years later, it's not lost on Dad that he has a disease named after a famous baseball player.

And now he has a golf tournament named after him. If you ask him, that's entirely fitting. He'll tell you a golf course is a level playing field for a guy like him.

"After all," he says, "everyone on the course has a handicap."



Shawn P. Sullivan is the editor of the Sanford News. He can be reached at newssanfordnews.com.


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