About a quarter of a century ago, Muhammad Ali was standing with one of his daughters (he has 9 children) by a driveway at Los Angeles International Airport.
We were walking by when my son, Andrew, spotted the famous boxer. My other son, Tom, immediately ran over to him and Ali did a right-left-right handshake and gave Tom an autograph.
He was gracious and friendly to the boys, characteristics I recalled last week talking to his oldest daughter, Maryum "May May" Ali.
"May May", a social worker with delinquent children and soon-to-be screenwriter, lives in Los Angeles. She was at the Balboa Bay Club in Newport Beach, Calif., to talk to the Parkinson Wellness Symposium.
She talked about how the disease has impacted her father, diagnosed 30 years ago, and about her sister, Raysheda's, children's book, "I'll Hold
Your Hand So You Won't Fall: A Child's Guide to Parkinson's disease" (Merit Publishing, 2005).
"He's a very positive person," she told me. "He's positive and peaceful. He's not angry he has Parkinson's. He says he's optimistic and he's not in any pain."
Q: Your father has had Parkinson's for 30 years. He's now 66. How is he coping?
A: He's in the stage where his balance and speech are impacted. But the disease progresses so slowly. He still looks good and still does pretty well, although sometimes he uses a walker.
Q: You said you try to take his attitude on life.
A: I've adopted my father's thinking. I don't walk around with negatives.
You know "The Secret" and all those books about how to live life? My father practiced all those positives. He never read the books, but he said
"I won't achieve a goal if I don't proclaim it first."
Q: He put a face on Parkinson's disease. He changed public thinking about the illness.
A: He sure did. In 1996 he put a face on Parkinson's disease when he lit the Olympic torch in Atlanta. The psychological impact of that, the symbolism of that, watching him light the torch when he was shaking (with Parkinson's tremors), changes the public face of the disease. Like Michael J. Fox. (Also diagnosed with Parkinson's disease.)
Even kids who might not know who my dad was saw him lighting the torch despite the shaking and all of a sudden it takes some of the stigma off the disease. He's still loved.
And all of a sudden it's OK to live like that out in public with Parkinson's. And you saw people with Parkinson's running marathons and doing all kinds of things and saying "we're not crazy, we just have this disease."
Q: You're very proud of your father.
A: He shook up the world.
I wrote a book for children about that: "I Shook Up the World."
He did it in many dimensions. His original boxing style - nobody had ever seen that - he was a very fast heavyweight. He shook up the world with his personality - he was articulate and very opinionated about things like politics and government. He was an American Olympian in 1960 but he refused to go into the military and denounced the Vietnam War before that was popular to do.
Inside and outside the ring. He transcended America. When he converted to Islam he broke a lot of ground and paved his own way.
Q: Is it difficult being the daughter of such an accomplished, famous man?
A: Absolutely not. Like he said, "I shook up the world." And he sure did.
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