Memoirous

I’ve been think a lot lately about early-onset Alzheimer’s. I think it has to do with the recent death of Pat Summitt , former head coach of the Lady Vols at the University of Tennessee. She was only 64. There is another reason I am saddened by her death: My father loved the Lady Vols. He watched every game he could on television. After retiring my parents moved to a kind of “Stepford Wives” retirement community where every lawn was groomed, the houses perfect, and the residents (mostly white) golfed and drank martinis. Maybe it was a bit like Mad Men too, with a dark underside. Anyway this community lay along the Cumberland Plateau in Tennessee, so close to the basketball action for that state. On weekends you’d see cars with little flags whipping on the back of SUVs Go Lady Vols. The women were taken just as bit as seriously as the men. And Pat Summitt was no joke, but the real deal. No one wanted to get between her and victory. She coached the team to eight NCAA cham...