Memory Walk Day

Here's Mary's report:

L to R: Dave, Mary, Matt, Meredith

What a gorgeous (although chilly) morning to be out on the Mall. I was wearing a long sleeve tee shirt with a sweater over it, then I added the Alzheimer's sweatshirt and my light jacket - they said to dress in layers but I felt a little like a sausage. It was cold - but when we got into the sun it was really nice. It reminded me how lucky I am to live here and get to take a simple walk around such beauty. You can't see the damage on the Washington Monument from our earthquake, but I had a slight nervousness looking at it. It was a nice crowd - I wore the sign Fran made for me last year, remembering my mom and grandmothers. It was touching reading signs people carried for Nana, or Granddad, or my sister. All in all a lovely morning with Meredith, Dave and Matt - after a grueling mile long walk, we had a nice brunch back in my neighborhood.

I support one other Memory Walk person today who is in San Diego. She's a girl I went to school with, whose mother was our Girl Scout leader who died of Alzheimer's. Mrs. Clark had been a flight attendant for American Airlines in the late 1940s, and my friend Ann, has this beautiful photo of her mother in her uniform, looking just so glamorous.

Anyway, when I had dinner with Ann this past summer, I told her that I so often think of her mother when I pick something up off the floor. When we were in sixth grade, her mother had tried to teach us tomboy hooligans some social graces, including how you pick something up off the floor in a ladylike way. You dip straight down, keeping your body vertical, according to Mrs. Clark. You do NOT bend over from the waist sticking your butt in the air. But, alas, to this day, I do bend over from the waist, sticking my butt out, so I often mutter, "Sorry, Mrs. Clark."