Acclimating to a loved one’s Alzheimer’s forces family members to reassess their roles — and forces Mike Cavaliere to consider a life in competitive hot dog eating.
“I have a bone to pick with you,” my mother-in-law, Helene, hissed at me. This was four years ago, back when she still had her faculties.
“Oh boy….” I braced for impact. “What’d I do this time?”
She leaned on the counter and scowled. “Hot dogs.” She pointed a finger. “I hear you’re forcing Charlotte to eat hot dogs.”
I chuckled at the implication, the fantasy of me and my then-7-year-old stepdaughter in an empty boxing gym after hours: her sat in front of a platter of franks piled high, and me in sweats, screaming, “MORE! MORE!” In my mind, it’s a “Rocky”-level training montage. At first, Char could only eat six or seven, but soon, I have her scarfing 20, 40. “You’re gonna eat lightning and crrrap thunder!” I bark as she dunks wieners into water then shoves them down her gullet. Sixty. Seventy. Only a matter of time now before we kick that smug Joey Chestnut off his cholesterol-ridden horse.
But the reality was way less fun. …
Read the full column on the Palm Coast Observer.
PHOTO: Rebecca Cavaliere explores a rocky coastline with daughter Charlotte a few years back, in the same spirit that she and her own mother, Helene, used to explore the world when she was young.
Mike Cavaliere 