Lou Gehrig's Day

Lou Gehring was a baseball player for the New York Yankees from 1925 to 1939. He was known as the "Iron Horse", and set a record by playing in 2,130 consecutive league games. In 1941, at the age of 37, Lou Gehring died of Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis.

Tony Vitale is one of the principal designers of the DECtalk speech synthesizer. The following is part of a speech Vitale gave on Lou Gehring's Day, July 23rd, 1995, at Fenway Park.

I am honored to have been chosen as Honorary Chairman of Gehrig's Day at Fenway Park. I have ALS. This day is dedicated to Lou Gehrig. He also had ALS. I would like this audience to know that I am neither angry nor depressed nor sad. The soul seems to create situations for itself in life so that it can learn from them and grow. Sometimes, illness can be just the situation that enables us to make changes in our lives. It provides the needed space, the emptiness, the silence that, it seems, must occur before creativity is free to operate. The emptiness seems to act like a vacuum, pulling the needed experience to it.

Illness can be a magnificent opportunity to become a whole person. I always felt I needed to learn certain skills in order to become a happier and more complete and fulfilled

individual. Skills like patience, greater trust of my fellow man, humility, understanding and acceptance of my own imperfection. I have begun to learn and to practice these skills since my diagnosis in the summer of 1993. There is nothing like tragedy or destruction to quickly push one along to learn something new when everything is taken away. You can start all over again. The slate is wiped clean.

My wife Jeanine does a lot of gardening. She loves to watch things grow. However, by late summer, she becomes somewhat weary of her mistakes: mistakes in the placement of plants, the plague of insects, or the constant watering of plants. I notice that she seems to be relieved to see autumn arrive, the first frost wiping out all of her mistakes.

Then comes the empty winter, a time for dreaming, dreaming anew of beautiful colors and exciting flowers which my wife has never had the chance to grow. If winter never came, as happens in warmer climates, she would never have the chance to start from the beginning. She would always be trying to add the new while simultaneously dealing with the old, a much more difficult process. But living in New England as we do, she greets each spring with joy, relief, surprise and wonder as nature unfolds her beauty yet again. She feels sorry in a way, for those with no winters in their lives. No chance to rest, no chance to start again, unfettered, no hope of spring to sustain them. I've always wanted to move to a warmer climate, one in which there is no winter. But now I'm beginning to understand my wife's reluctance. There is no change, no new beginning.

This horrible disease called ALS is like the winter. It is in one sense a death, but in another a hope of renewal. Now that I have only perhaps a few more years to live, I've been working harder than ever before. And I intend to keep working hard until it's impossible to lift my hands. And then I will use a speech recognizer to do my work until I can't speak. And then I will use a speech synthesizer to communicate with my co-workers, family and friends. So the reason why this day is so important, Ladies and Gentleman, is that if we are able, in the process of making money and gaining fame, to help one person like myself, then all our lives will have been worth it. John Donne said, No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main". We are all connected.