BOSTON. In this, the most Irish city in America, the streets are filled from spring through summer with walks for cures for numerous diseases. “It a good thing they don’t have one for Osgood-Schlatter’s Disease,” says Chamber of Commerce spokeswoman Mary Ann McGlogarty. “All that walking would only make things worse for the little fellas.”
“I don’t know where we’re going, but I’ll never forgive Tim O’Brien.”
But there is a new entrant in the crowded field of ailments that tug at residents’ heartstrings by filling the streets with walkers clad in souvenir t-shirts, water bottles in hand: “We’ve taken care of everybody but our own folks,” says Siobhan Blakey. “The cobbler’s kids go shoeless, and our poor mums and dads go without the critical aid they need in their golden years.”
“You stepped on my foot last year too, you oaf.”
Blakey is referring to “Irish Alzheimer’s Disease,” which strikes eight out of ten descendants of the Emerald Isle before they die, after which it doesn’t matter. “Victims of Irish Alzheimer’s forget everything but the grudges,” says McGlogarty. “It’s the one thing they have to hold on to when they can’t remember where they left their glasses and car keys.”
Local primary care physicians had long doubted the existence of a separate strain of Alzheimer’s Disease until they encountered the curious case of Seamus Houlihan, who wandered into Massachusetts General Hospital one day because he had heard that actor John Wayne had once been treated there. “He was incoherent, babbling, couldn’t tell us where he lived,” says Dr. Philip McGrath. “Then he saw my name tag and recalled that a girl named Daisy McGrath refused to dance with him in junior high, and he was off to the races.”
Medical researchers say they are hopeful a new drug cocktail will provide relief from symptoms, which include grumbling, muttering under one’s breath, and general orneriness. Patrick Keoghan, a local resident who can trace his ancestry back to 18th century County Cork, is encouraged by the news. “I’ve been collecting grievances for years,” he says as he opens the bulkhead door to his basement. “My wife says I’ve got to throw them out to make room for her canned goods.”