A tale which bears repeating:

[PCIntern]

I posted this story in 2004 when I first joined DU, probably to establish my bona fides in those long-forgotten days....paraphrasing from that early post:

When I was a young clinician, about a year out of dental school, I opened my own practice here in Philly and had Had a number of middle-aged professionals referred to me immediately form two of the Universities where I was lecturing in the Department of Restorative Dentistry. Almost immediately, the campaign of 1980 occurred and Reagan was elected President, and I shall never ever forget a conversation which I had with a mature, brilliant and very well-known clinical psychologist who was literally one of my first patients in private, solo practice, prior to the 1981 inauguration.

We were talking about the election, and I mentioned to him that I was no mental health professional but the fact that the President-elect demanded that colored jelly beans always be placed before him gave me pause. His response was, "why od you say that? I'm curious..." My reply was, "When I was a teenager, there was this really nice guy who lived down the street from us and seemingly all of a sudden, he needed to have all kinds of brightly-colored bric-a-brac and other objects everywhere in the house: at the kitchen table, on the coffee table, in the bedroom on his nightstand, and like that. I knew about this because his wife had mentioned it to my Mom and she was perplexed; that it was weird because he had never been 'that kind of guy'. Shortly thereafter, he started to lose his sense of time, place, and person, and was finally diagnosed with Alzheimer's."

The psychologist, and I will never ever forget this, said to me in a low voice, "You are absolutely right - he has early Alzheimer's but if you say anything about this to the average lay person, people in the area will think you're a horrible person who discriminates based upon age and you will never live it down, word will get out and your practice growth will be compromised."

The rest of course, is history...the famous line, fed by Nancy: "We're doing the best we can..." was proof positive.

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"My friends", we are in the same situation today. There is a candidate proffered who is losing his touch right before our very eyes and since DENIAL isn't simply a river in Egypt, people had best better get off their collective asses and begin understanding that this is a problem. We cannot afford to have three impaired Presidents out of the soon-to-be-most-recent five.

[truedelphi]

1. LOL. McCain is Reagan without the Jelly beans.

Well, when you are the two thousand year old candidate, you might not have even heard about jelly beans. So if we get McCain in the OVal Office, it might be, "Here ya go, have some mastodon jerky - that will take care of your sweet tooth!!"

I am curious though, did you notice Reagan's Alzheimer's before or after the Hinckley shooting??

A lot of people close to Reagan have come out over the years since he left office and said that the shock of that shooting, and the damage he received left him impaired. As it probably would to any of us older folks receiving such a blow.

[PCIntern]

2. Before...it was prior to the inauguration...

perhaps I didn't make that clear. Sorry, I'll edit that. Thanks!

PC