Diseases of the brain seldom seem to inspire philanthropists to the same degree as those of the body. Maybe that’s because nobody likes to feel sad, and thinking about them triggers that emotion even more intensely than many chronic physical disorders.
Alzheimer’s disease, the Keegan Family Curse, put both of my late, great parents on a cruelly slow crawl back to infancy. Those years were not without occasional relief, sometimes comic, other times touching.
Once, while my parents visited us in our Oak Park, Ill., home, my father commented that I looked incredibly young for my age, which puzzled me considering I was about two french fries shy of a button flying off my shirt and putting a hole in the TV before we could find out whether Mitch Williams worked his way out of the bases-loaded jam he walked himself into. After a few more incongruous comments, I figured out that my father thought I was his roommate from medical school, my godfather, Bill Quigley. I took that news to my mother, who was upstairs resting. She burst out laughing.
“He’s thought that for three days,” she said. “I can see why. You’re both fat. You both have big noses. And you’re both funny.”
Hey, one out of three earns a spot in the Hall of Fame, right?
During the same trip, my father confided to my mother that he was, “so happy that Angie found such a nice guy,” proving he loved my wife so much he thought she was his daughter.
A few years ago, a quietly strong pillar of Lawrence familiar with my family history steered me toward “Dealing With Alzheimer’s,” a Texas Hold ’em benefit poker tournament getting started in town. The annual event is in its fourth year and takes place this Saturday night at Lawrence Country Club.
I was on the planning committee for the event for a year, which was long enough for me to learn the accuracy of what I always had heard: The women do all the work and the men take all the credit. So I decided to bow out, let Lawrence philanthropists Susan Bonham, Kitty Shea, Linda Upstill and others do all the work. I write one column a year to promote it.
This year, with such hard economic times making it difficult to inspire giving, I challenged myself to arrange a celebrity guest to play poker, one with enough star power to draw curiosity seekers to donate $75 to play with a chance to win a free trip to Las Vegas, or a $25 donation to attend and partake in the silent auction.
The perfect choice hit me like a lightning bolt: Samantha Ryan. If that name sounds familiar, it probably should. She’s the porn star who didn’t date Tiger Woods. She’s an accomplished poker player and a charitable young lady. She’s coming to Lawrence to play in the tourney Saturday night without making a dime on it. She has pledged whatever proceeds she makes off signing publicity shots and other items to the Alzheimer’s Association. (I really can take full credit for this one. It’s my idea, run past nobody. She’ll be my guest, the cost of her flight picked up by an anonymous donor. That’s another thing I don’t like about committees. All it takes to kill ideas is one dissenting vote. I like all my ideas and hate to see any of them die.)
Ryan, you might recall, is the hardcore Kansas basketball fan who briefly was involved in the most non-controversial controversy in sports history. Call it a nontroversy. Ryan, 32, noticed the man sitting next to her on a flight was wearing KU basketball gear, struck up a conversation with him and wowed him with her knowledge of the program’s history. He introduced himself as assistant basketball coach Kurtis Townsend and she introduced herself with her given name. Her profession never came up. He left her tickets, having no clue she had a stage name. She made the mistake of thanking him on her Twitter account (SammyRyRy) and it went viral.
“It’s not exactly the publicity I wanted,” Ryan said by phone from her home in Los Angeles. “I feel terrible about it. I wanted to crawl into a hole when it all started happening.”
No harm, no foul. Nobody did anything wrong and Ryan is stepping up to do something very right, adding Alzheimer’s to her list of charities that includes muscular dystrophy (her father’s affliction), diabetes (her brother’s disease) and leukemia lymphoma, which invaded the body of an industry friend of hers.
Ryan, the feisty philanthropist, has a response for anyone who might have a problem that some of the titles of her films have almost as many X’s as the labels of my shirts.
“I’m healthy, I don’t do drugs, I diet and exercise,” she said. “I work hard for my body. It doesn’t just come to me. If you’re the one who’s judging, you should really turn that back on yourself.”
Ryan is troubled by much of what she sees on free TV.
“Adult is for adults,” she said. “Turn on your TV and kids can watch mind-numbing, distorting stuff that’s corroding their minds. Watch Paris Hilton. See how she treats people. I’m way more talented and a much better person than Paris Hilton. I’m not out there spreading hatred. I spread love, positive thinking. What’s on our TV these days, so-called reality, people hating on each other, all our kids are thinking that’s what’s cool.”
What’s cool is that Ryan, a former KU student and native of Johnson County, is coming all the way from California to help create a buzz for Saturday’s event. My hope is some wives of Lawrence men are going to encourage their husbands to overcome their bashfulness to play in the event. Others will play alongside them. College students will partake, getting their first taste of a charity event. To be safe, don’t wait to show up at the door for the 6 p.m. event that starts with a poker clinic for novices.
Here’s how to reserve a spot and/or sign up for a sponsorship level: Log onto www.alz.org/kansascity or contact Trisha McClanahan at 913-831-3888 or at trisha.mcclanahan@alz.org.
The mind you save could be your own. Alzheimer’s doesn’t play favorites. Be there or be square.
