I have two friends with Parkinson’s Disease who will soon be undergoing the Deep Brain Stimulation surgeries I had 2-1/2 years ago.

One is Christine “Tina” Borman of Fountain Hills, who is an active member of the local Parkinson’s Sup-port Group and a board member of the Fountain Hills Historical Society.

Her series of three surgeries are set for Dec. 31, Jan. 7 and Jan. 15.

Unlike my surgeries at Mayo when I was awake for the first two, she is having the surgeries at Barrows in Phoenix and has opted to have the surgeries while she will be asleep and under anesthesia.

She also will be having a rechargeable battery device placed in her chest that emits the charge into the electrodes placed in the brain. That is an improvement over the replaceable battery which I had installed with a battery life of three to five years. The rechargeable battery is good for up to nine years.

Mine is in the “monitor closely” status and I expect to have that replacement scheduled some time after the first of the year. And I will be asking about the rechargeable battery to replace it.

The other person having the DBS surgeries is a friend from high school, Margie Hulpke. In fact, she was my girlfriend during my first two years of college.

We became reacquainted several years ago after I ran into her brothers at a Fountain Hills restaurant. Her older brother was a teammate on the track and cross country teams. Her younger brother was a teammate of my brother in the same sports.

She started reading my columns on-line and discovered I had Parkinson’s Disease.

Ironically enough, she also has Parkinson’s.

We’ve been exchanging periodic emails since then. She came to the Fountain Hills Support Group meeting when I was the guest speaker about three years ago.

I hadn’t heard from her in about six months until last week when I got an email from her, informing me that she had been chosen for the DBS surgery in January.

As with Tina, she will have her surgery at Barrow’s and has opted for the “asleep” version. She isn’t sure about the battery type she will be getting.

I wish both of you the best with your surgeries.

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Here’s a last reminder to

get your nomination forms submitted to the Hall of Fame selection committee by Tuesday, Dec. 17.

Members of the committee will be meeting the following day to review all of the nominations.

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Boy, did it get cold? I had frost at my place this past Friday, Saturday and Monday. But as much as we desert dwellers were complaining, it was nothing compared to what they had in other parts of the country.

Did you see that football game played in the snow in Philadelphia? They had to use a blower to show where the lines were on the field.

Local insurance man Jon Klesner said he went to Nebraska last week for his annual pheasant hunting outing with his high school buddies. They found they couldn’t be outside very long with the sub-zero temperatures.

When he left on Sunday the temperature was 18 below and the wind chill was a minus 35 degrees.

That’s cold in anybody’s books.