Herr Doktor Alois Alzheimer discovered Alzheimer's disease in 1906.
I discovered it in my grandmother, Leokadia, about seventy years later.
Leokadia's (or "Lotte" as she Germanized herself) youngest son became one of the world's pre-eminent historians of the Reformation.
When he was off reading papers at Tubingen and Heidelberg and all the finest universities on the Continent they called him "Herr Doktor Professor."
I just called him Uncle. He discovered Doktor Alzheimer ten years ago or so.
But it bit hard.
I never tired of kidding him about that reading of papers stuff.
"What, you're flying to Zurich to read the paper? My God man, I read the goddamn paper right here every day... what's the matter with you egg-heads?"
And so on.
What was so cool about Herr Doktor Professor, is that long before he was Herr Doktor Professor he was a welder. In fact he put in some time on the Second Narrows Bridge just before it fell down. He was that rare combination; a learned man with practical skills.
But it's all over now.
The other day I was out for a walk, and lost in thought, and by God, at some point I came back to the walk from the thoughts and I couldn't figure out quite where I was. Or where I was going.
Right there in my own woodlot that I've wandered through a thousand times.
Is that how it starts?
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