It is not often that I will delve into my personal life in any great depth on this weblog, but this seems like a good reason to do so. To get straight to the point, my maternal grandmother is currently suffering through the later stages of one of the many subsets of Alzheimer's, and is on a more-or-less steady decline that can only end in one outcome. Her memory regresses more and more as time goes on, to the point where she cannot even remember who her own daughter is, much less what year it is, or really where she is or why. Thankfully, the home my mother found for her was designed for caring for people like my grandmother, and she is as comfortable and as safe as she could be anywhere. My maternal grandfather, though he died before the ailment had the opportunity to progress very far in his system, also showed indications of having something at least approximating Alzheimer's. While both of my paternal grandparents died before any real indications of this disease were shown (though, they died over 20 years ago, so I am not sure we would have been able to identify them if they were there), and while the genetic ties of Alzheimer's have not yet been completely documented, much less proven, this situation does not give me a warm fuzzy... that is for certain.

Thankfully, there are those people in this world who are a lot smarter than I am, and are using that intelligence to track and solve the problem of Alzheimer's, and also make the lives of those people afflicted by it that much more comfortable and care-filled, and one such group is the Alzheimer's Association. So what can some schmuck like me, who barely graduated college, do for an organization like this? Well, since 1989, the Alzheimer's Association has been running a program called Memory Walk, wherein people who participate in the walk are supported by donations from thesmelves, from coworkers, from family, from friends, and those donations are then forwarded on to the Alzheimer's Association for the continuance of their overall mission. In the almost-twenty-years of its existence, the Memory Walk has raised over $225 million... and I can hardly see anything wrong with that.

However, one of the things necessary for this year's walk to be a success is people to volunteer to serve as a Team Captain. These Team Captains are understandably in charge of the teams they are responsible for forming for the Memory Walk, and the Alzheimer's Association has been kind enough to draw up a document explaining exactly what they need to do, and outlining ten primary tips or goals. However, it basically boils down to this: Register yourself, recruit at least nine friends, family members, or business associates, and through enthusiasm, excitement, public advertisements, and the like, raise at least $200 for the Alzheimer's Association. For those people with natural leadership capabilities, this would be a wonderful opportunity to practice them, and teaming up with people you know only serves to enhance the camaraderie inherent to the situation, as well as expands your capabilities to raise as much money as possible.

With more than five million Americans alone afflicted by Alzheimer's (and more on the way, what with everyone getting older by the minute), this can hardly be anything except a good cause... And, after all, just about all of us could use more exercise than we are currently getting.