Bill Rowell stands for a portrait at his home in Hadley on Wednesday, Jan. 10, 2018. RECORDER STAFF/DAN LITTLE
He showed off the White House stationary, signed by Gerald Ford, some 40 years prior to his diagnosis. The president had thanked him and his classmates for his performance.
Hanging on the walls was a career framed between watershed moments. There was the photo from the 1930s of his father, who was one of the greatest teachers he ever had. There was the photo of himself in his West Point uniform, instrument in hand. There were his students, who had gone on to lead some of the top bands in the country, playing in Washington, D.C., and around the world.
In 2014, a dozen years after retiring as director of bands, emeritus, professor of music at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, Malcolm “Bill” Rowell was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease.
“It’s not unlike cancer, really, once you hear you have Parkinson’s,” Rowell said, reflecting on the disease in his Hadley home, four years later. “It’s pretty definitive. There’s no escaping that.”
A distinguished individual all throughout his career, he toiled with what this was going to mean for him at 71 years old at the time.
“What I was doing is not separate from who I am. The thought of not being able to conduct and teach ... What will other people think of me when my arms start quivering and my lips start shaking,” Rowell said. “I had to come to grips with all of those things.”
In that first year of diagnosis, Rowell worked through these thoughts and as he came to grips with some form of a changing reality.
“I struggled with that at first because I spent my whole career being around young people — young thought processes, young energy — and suddenly, I’m around ‘ancient’ people, who are not well and their bodies do funny things,” Rowell said. “I wasn’t ready to be one of those people.”
Soon, though, his wife happened to find an advertisement in the newspaper for an exercise class for those with Parkinson’s, run by regional physical therapist Debra Ellis.
“In comes Deb’s class and these exercises are going to help me stay young and active,” Rowell said. “I never felt that anything I was doing was not benefiting me, but, in fact, my wife can tell you I come home many times energized.”
Rowell, seemingly always amiable, waxed on a story that he had already shared with Ellis before my arrival.
“I had a stress test the other day for a heart issue now. When I finished the stress test, two of the three nurses said to me, ‘You’re amazing,’” he said, with a big smile. “Well, if it weren’t for her class, and these satellites programs and pilates I do once a week, that’s what helped me to achieve in the stress test.”
“The next day I power walked the length of this street, and there’s a pretty good hill at the end of this street, and I wouldn’t even have thought of doing that before,” he continued. “But that stress test taught me I could do that and there’s still more where that came from. Attitude plays into this thing in a huge way.”
Staying ‘young and active’
Ellis’ class is an evidence-based group exercise program, designed out of the Boston University Center for Neurorehabilitation, and grant-funded by the American Parkinson Disease Association. The goal of it, as Rowell put it, is to help you stay “young and active.” For the first time since 2012, Ellis, based in Hampshire County typically, will be running this six-week, twice-a-week program out of the YMCA in Greenfield starting Feb. 7.
Rowell ended up participating in two iterations of Ellis’ class, before going onto participate in other programs and satellite versions of Ellis’ program, run by trained assistants.
“Part of the whole idea is to teach people the different categories of exercise they need to focus on,” Ellis said. “They need certain amounts of rigorous aerobic exercises.”
It’s the teaching and the way she articulates herself that Rowell found most helpful while taking her classes, as a way to give himself the confidence he needed to take ownership of Parkinson’s.
“I would always hear her say, ‘Swing that arm, Bill. Swing that arm!’” Rowell said. “She was speaking to a room full of clients: What we’re dealing with here is not optional. This needs to be customary habits of the rest of your life. Those are strong statements.”
“I’m a little pushy,” Ellis noted.
“That’s the beauty of it,” Rowell quickly replied.
In addition to Ellis’ work, which Rowell described as, “some people are teachers, Deb Ellis is an artist,” he said that a major piece of what has picked up his mentality is the people he met in the class. They would go on to other classes and conferences together, learning more about the disease.
“I have a lot of clients who will talk to me about the gift of Parkinson’s Disease,” Ellis said, adding she realizes that most people would not look at it in that light.
“That community cares for one another,” Rowell responded. “It becomes obvious. It manifests itself in attendance.”
While Rowell engages in a new community for him, he still finds solace in music. Ellis said the classes she taught with him in it, he was always the person to watch to grab the rhythm of the song. And a lifelong teacher, he still takes pride in helping out the next generation and taking pride in their work moving forward.
“I’m not as active as I was, but I’m still a force. I still do conduct clinics,” Rowell said. “I’m doing more writing now. Not music writing. But my career, my findings, things I believe in. Documenting my career.”
‘One must remain
an opportunist’
Rowell has been thinking a lot about his career these days, along with focusing on his goals, centered around his family and grandchildren.
“As time went on, I realized I wasn’t going to die today, I wasn’t going to be worse off tomorrow, but there are things that I can do today and tomorrow to make it more realistic for me to be around in good health for when my grandchildren do graduate from high school and that’s what I needed to focus on,” Rowell said. “I guess what I’m saying is, one must remain an opportunist, in whatever you are choosing to pursue. I’m also at an age at this point that I know I’m someplace on the mountain and there’s going to be less days on this side of the mountain than there were on that side. That’s the reality.”
He continued: “I’m involved with the men’s group at church. We happened to meet this morning. The wisdom that I benefit from at those morning coffees and breakfast is incredible, once you get past the fact that they’re talking about dying. I’m not ready to talk about dying, I just retired. But as I listen more carefully, it wasn’t just about dying, and these were pretty astute people, which taught me that I had more to learn. I’m not ready to let go of that.”
Parkinson’s Class at the
YMCA in Greenfield
For those interested in taking Debra Ellis’ six-week exercise program for those with Parkinson’s Disease, they can contact her at 413-695-6069 or at deb@debellistpt.com for more information. For more information on the program, people can visit, www.debellisphysicaltherapy.com.
The class will begin at the YMCA in Greenfield Feb. 7, and run Wednesdays and Fridays from 1 to 2:30 p.m. It costs $239 for members of the Y and $249 for nonmembers, but financial aid is available for this grant-funded class, supported by the Massachusetts chapter of the American Parkinson Disease Association.
http://www.recorder.com/Battling-Parkinson-s-Disease-one-day-at-a-time-14823835
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