MIND OVER MATTER

My Father, Mike, the third oldest brother lived by this motto. In a family this size it was hard not being able to keep up with the group physically. Mike was handicapped, but not disabled. He walked with a limping gait and couldn"t run. He climbed stairs slowly and with much effort and came back down slowly, If he fell he had a hard time getting back on his feet. Mike learned early in life that the mind and will is what would get him through any problems brought up by his physical problem. He went on to become a barber (on your feet all day) and married Connie Vigallon and they had two sons, Mike and Bob. This was the first half of the twentieth century and medicine had not learned enough to diagnose his condition...the Doctors mumbled something about growing too fast or missing some kind of vitamin or maybe this or maybe that, or,or,or. His younger sister, Mary, (we all called Tita Mary) was physically handicapped like Mike and diagnosed with could be this or that or, or, or. Tita Mary never married and lived with Abuela until Abuela died and Uncle Bill and his wife moved in with her. Sometime later the family home was sold and Tita Mary moved in with her sister Margaret who was married to Angelo Trujillo.

As "luck" would have it Mike's two boys, Mike Jr. and Bob were born with physical problems that were more severe than their Father and Aunt. They were almost five before they walked and then before their teenage years were confined to wheel-chairs.
Mike invented the expression "Tuff Love." He knew he had to raise his two boys with spirit, "guts" and a want to be able to take care of themselves. He was tuff on the boys but loving and their Mom, Connie was all love and no tuff, so it all seem to work out.

Mike Jr. who passed away from a heart attack at 45 years old owned and operated a tobacco shop, a men's accessories and necktie shop and a billiard parlor with his brother Bob. For the last ten years of his life he was the Director of Alameda, Napa-Sonoma, and Contra Costa Counties for the Muscular Dystrophy Association. You just got your clue.

Mike Jr. and Bob were taken to every possible place where help or a diagosis could be found. This included Shriner's Hospital and University of California Medical Center in San Francisco, as well as many Doctors, Specialists, Religious Zealots (touch you and you are cured) fortune tellers, chiropraters, and "Kooks." As I said before, medicine was a little behind in the first half of the 20th. century. In 1955 a week of exams at the University of California in San Francisco and the mystery was finally solved and the diagnosis, as well as the prognosis was learned.

DIAGNOSIS: An inherited disease is in our family...MUSCULAR DYSTROPHY.
PROGNOSIS: A slow deteriaion of the muscles.
CURE: After 50 years of study........No cure yet.
I write this story only because it is so important that our family recognize that this disease is in our blood line and can skip generations and pop up again. Every member of this family and their children and their children's children and so on should mention this to their Doctor and all they have to do is have their urine tested. Sorry for the lecture, but it is with love.

Well, I think my Father succeeded in creating two monsters, maybe making us too independent and strong. In any case I will brag a little. As you read above I was in a number of businesses with my brother Mike and then went out on my own and opened and operated a Private Men's Club called "Man Friday, for five years.
My wife Connie and I decided to move to Southern California in 1971. We lived in Orange County. I received my Certificate of Management from the University of California at Irvine and worked for the University of California Irvine Medical Center. I retired Director of Outpatient Clinics (87 Clinics) for the University Medical Center where I was employed for 23 years.

Through all these years the family supported all four of us in loving and caring ways during a time in history when many "cripple" people were hidden away in their homes and the families did not include them in their lives. It was after World War II when so many men returned without limbs and in wheel chairs that the public began to view less than physically perfect as an acceptable concept.

A story about our family that had to be told and because Mike Sr. Mike Jr. and Tita Mary are gone I felt obligated to write this. I am having and have had a great life, married this July 11 for 40 years, having two children from Connie's 1st, marriage and now retired and living in Las Vegas. So as Dad always said, Mind Over Matter.