My Father’s ALS: A Son’s Healing Journey
After months of puzzling symptoms, Kenneth Kann’s dad is diagnosed with a “dread disease,” amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, ALS. His dad and mom try to grasp this life-shattering news. It triggers disturbing realizations that at thirty-five, a proud survivor of sixties radicalism and the counterculture, Kenneth is leading a marginal life as a freelance writer and part-time teacher in Berkeley California. He is still battling with his dad. He is not prepared for his dad to be sick. He cannot absorb what he reads about ALS and what may happen to his dad. He is stunned by his parents’ tears. He goes home to help his mom, his dad, and himself.
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Kenneth Kann helped his father live and die with the dread disease ALS. At age thirty-five, in 1979, he was a UC Berkeley history teacher when his father was diagnosed with ALS. After his father died, he enrolled in law school, became a successful litigation attorney, and later became a director of the government agency that administers the California court system. He is the author of two popular history books: Comrades and Chicken Ranchers, the Story of a California Jewish Community and Joe Rapoport, the Life of a Jewish Radical.