Powder-Puff Game Battles Tough Disease

I watched my mom succumb to the ravages of Alzheimer’s disease.

It’s not a pretty sight. It’s sad enough to watch a family member, particularly your mom, loose all recognition of her offspring and loved ones — in my case there was a distinction.

Then, the autonomous functions of the brain start to shut down and the body, even though the patient receives nutrients by eating or intravenous feedings, simply can’t process said nutrients, which pass through the ever-weakening body.

Her skin resembled tissue paper toward the end, and you could almost see the decaying organs.

I participated in multiple Memory Walk events at the Dallas Zoo to help raise money for medical research to find a cure for this bad-boy disease — which, if I remember the doctors’ explanations, cannot be definitively diagnosed while the patient is alive because the only accurate measure comes from a sampling of brain tissue.

The walks though, were not competitive sports. I’m not even sure there was a set path to follow through the zoo. We just kind of wandered around and looked at the animals for a while, then caught the train back to Mockingbird Station.

The women participating in the third annual Blondes vs. Brunettes powder-puff football game, though, hit the field with a definite game plan in mind — raise money for the Alzheimer's Association.

This year’s tilt happens at 7 p.m., Aug. 12, on the Highlander Stadium field in Highland Park. Twenty-five bucks gets you in and, for people 21 and older, into the after-party at Stan’s Blue Note.

So far this year, the game has raised more than $121,000, and hat’s off ladies.

The only puzzling thing is that Team Brunette has 21 coaches and Team Blonde listens to 15 coaches. The Cowboys’ staff has fewer coaches, so why do they need so many?

Ooooh.

Bruce Felps owns and operates East Dallas Times, an online community news outlet serving the White Rock Lake area. Hmm, he hasn’t been to Stan’s in quite a while.