<h1>"You're not drunk if you can lie on the floor without holding on".</h1>

I have been weaving a bit lately, especially as the L-dopa wears off. It is kind of a floating feeling, light headiness, much like the times in university when I drank beer; sometimes until I couldn't walk a straight line if I tried. It is not a good feeling, as you probably know, and I avoid it now by not drinking. Any bouncing off the walls is not due to Bacchus overload, but to my constant, irritating, companion, Parkinson's Disease. If you should catch me weaving down the street, try not to label me a "no good drunk". Nothing good is usually the correct adjectives for the workings of PD, but "drunk", well that's just not me

While writing this missive, an incident popped into the part of my brain that still works.

It was 1969, my first year of teaching and I was rooming, in a 2 bedroom basement apartment, with 2 other teachers and Big Jim. For now I will call the 2 teachers the duke and the sheriff. Big Jim was halfheartedly looking for a job. He didn't have to get up in the morning, the three teachers did. This meant Big Jim could go out drinking at any hour and this particular night, he got wasted.

Before I continue, you must picture our bedrooms. Big Jim and the sheriff lived in one, and the Duke and me in the other. The rooms were identical, rectangular boxes with a window in the end wall, a rather large window which could easily be opened. The beds were placed against the long walls and between them, beneath the window, was a book case with a long necked goose lamp attached on each side. When I say "bookcase", we were nomads and did not buy good furniture so the bookcase was fashioned from cinder blocks with planks of wood for shelving. You can imagine, it was not the sturdiest of structures.

Big Jim came home late; the rest of us were sleeping. In his stupor, he crashed into a wall and woke me up. I heard him get into his bed and soon his snoring filled the apartment. I was in that twilight zone in which you are neither awake nor asleep when Big Jim yelled, loudly as if there was great danger abounding, "HEADS UP BOYS, HEADS UP. THEY ARE COMING THROUGH THE WINDOWS!!!!"and as he thrashed around, he managed to get his arm caught up in the goose lamp's electrical cord causing the bookcase to fall. This happened in a nano second and in one magnificent exit from his bed, Big Jim hurdled the debris on his way to the bathroom.....He didn't make it and his vomit splashed all over the hallway.

When Big Jim had shouted and run out of the bedroom, he had wakened the whole apartment. The sheriff immediately jumped from his bed but spent precious seconds avoiding the shelving and books on the floor. He came dashing out of his bedroom, oblivious to the mess Big Jim had made and like a figure skater out of control, landed on his bum in the slippery ejectile. He looked silly trying to get off the floor. The duke started laughing and I, well, I awarded the sheriff a 10.

When all was under control, Jim said sheepishly, "Sorry." to which the sheriff replied with a dry heave and turned on the shower. Big Jim cleaned the place up to the symphony of the sheriff's heaves. The duke went to have a cup of coffee; I went to bed committing the incident to memory so as to be able to write about someday in the future. Today that future arrived.

What's this got to do with PD. Nothing. No moral. Just a vignette; although if you weave sober and then drink too much, you may look like a fool. Just keep in mind this quote from the Bible...

“He hath swallowed down riches, and he shall vomit them up again: God shall cast them out of his belly.”

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