Now 80, Bell was halfway through his 60s when Ed Leventhal, another regular in the then-unnamed group of weekend cyclists, needed to add a little levity to his life to counteract the crowd of candles on his birthday cake.
Thinking the group’s other mature riders had the same accounting issue, Leventhal initiated an annual bike ride to celebrate his birthday and decided it was high time the seniors cycling group had a name.
“That way,” he reasoned, “we can (add) another line in our obituaries.”
To that end, he polled the group’s usual suspects, among them Bell, Pete Noonan, Charlie Crable, Kim Fish, and Hal and Beth Goodrich.
The name “Old Spokes” so nicely echoed “Old Folks” that members smiled broadly enough to put them at risk for getting insects lodged between their teeth during rides.
A tricky diagnosis
The friends had added another 10 years of riding when Bell was diagnosed with Parkinson’s.
He and wife, Cathy, say the long prelude to that moment began years before when the late Springfield neurologist Dr. Denny Sullivan told them “something was going on” with Andy’s neural system but “couldn’t say just what,” which is often the case with Parkinson’s.
Later, when a pill intended to go down Bell’s throat ended up in a nasal passage, an Ear, Nose and Throat doctor mentioned Parkinson’s.
And there were “things I had noticed,” said Bell’s wife of 57 years. Among them: “that his arm didn’t swing when he walked” and that his posture seemed slightly off kilter.
In, 2016 — soon after Bell’s retirement as president of Consolidated Insurance Agency -— the two brought a list of symptoms they had compiled to family doctor, Paul Buchanan, who made the diagnosis.
‘I know a guy …’
The Bells quickly found themselves facing another neurological issue: a shortage of neurologists that soon spawned an “I-know-a-guy-who-knows-a-guy” story.
It happened that an instructor in their daughter-in-law Heidi’s Columbus yoga studio was related to an ear, nose and throat specialist whose brother’s partner was — guess what — a neurologist.
But there was a catch: Andy could be squeezed in only if the neurologist’s expectant child entered the world a time that fit everyone else’s schedule.
After the infant gracefully complied, the neurologist confirmed the diagnosis the moment he saw Andy walk across the waiting room of his office.
The doctor’s first order: “Get into an exercise class.”
That week, Andy was at the Columbus studio of David Zid, a certified trainer who created an exercise program that “seemed to dramatically improve his symptoms” of a doctor who had retired because of Parkinson’s – a quote found on an Amazon summary of Zid’s popular book, Delay the Disease: Exercise and Parkinson’s.
Nix the ‘Why me?’
Bell’s immediate embrace of exercise was made easier both because he already did so regularly and he so readily accepted his condition.
“I don’t like having it,” he said. Among the things he has had to accept is losing his train of thought mid-sentence, which he has done with grace.
With no sign of hesitation he says, “You have to accept it rather than saying ‘Why me?’”
For three years he traveled to Columbus for his workouts, “put about 100,000 miles on my car” and logged a boatload of commuting time before virtual classed became available – classes he endures six days a week.
“Andy bought into it from day one, and he has never wavered,” said Melissa Carlson, who said he was calls him “one of my first guys” when she started teaching Parkinson’s fitness classes 10 years ago.
She has as high praise for his fitness as a person, who “has always been there for me” and allowed them to develop a banter-based relationship in which she both describes him as “a fine glass of wine” who gets better with age and calls his wife St. Cathy.
Bells says the classes “work on all kinds of things -- your voice … your balance … your coordination and mental exercises that require “doing two things that are kind of opposite of each other under stress.” (Think of rubbing your belly and patting your head on steroids.)
Cathy’s reminder that burpees are involved drew this response from him: “There’s nothing worse than watching an 80-year-old guy trying to do a burpee.”
Because that fails to account for the dedication of the 80-year-old guy with Parkinson’s who is does the burpees, the Old Spokes stepped in.
A big weekend
“I don’t know whether I saw something on the Internet,” Leventhal said, “but The Michael J. Fox Foundation started this fundraiser (the Tour de Fox) for which the foundation pays the administrative costs so that all money collected can go to Parkinson’s research.”
“We thought that would be a great way to recognize Andy for everything he’s done in the community and show solidarity with him.”
“It’s been amazing,” Cathy Bell said.
(Note: Among Bell’s highest honors is the Richard L. Kuss Lifetime Community Achievement Award, which recognizes those instrumental in raising funds for initiatives to improve the Springfield community.)
Through the combined effort of 20-some riders and about 70 donors, the more than $24,000 Team Bell’ raised for Saturday’s ride has pushed its 6-year total “to about $103,000,” Leventhal said.
“We feel great, and Andy’s very appreciative.”
Festivities will start with a Friday night party at the Polo Club. The ride will begin at 8 a.m. Saturday on the Springfield area bike trail with a stop at Old Spoke Kate McGowen’s house north of Urbana for coffee, soft drinks and power bars. Riders then will pedal south, swing by the C.J. Brown Reservoir and head west to Mother Stewart’s for post-ride pizza, beer and soft drinks complements of the Bells and Leventhal.
The road ahead
Although he sometimes rides his three-wheel recumbent bicycle, Bell can no longer ride in the Old Spokes benefit.
But after next weekend, he can and will continue those six-a-week workouts that help him slow the progression of his Parkinson’s — and the regimen of daily medications that treat symptoms including dizziness, nausea and constipation — the last of which, he says “always makes the headlines” among family and friends.
As for the progression of the disease he says he won’t die of but will die with?
Bell said he “really didn’t develop shaking until probably this year” and is “not at the point” that he needs the elective surgery that can address it.
While there is no approved treatment for the decreasing volume of his voice, the Bells say their four sons have nonetheless intervened.
As every conscious adult child is aware, the presence of a father who has trouble projecting his voice in a home that includes a mother who has hearing problems is the ideal format for a sitcom. And the Bells say their boys have excelled at providing punch lines in the way supportive children should.
“The kids make fun of us,” Cathy says with a smile on her face and in her eyes.
Andy also has one when he warns, “You can’t have a thin skin in this family.”
It’s a condition both have come not only accept but embrace.
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