muscular dystrophy 3/17/01

Grant's leads state in shamrock sales for muscular dystrophyBart BachmanBARTLETT There are shamrocks everywhere at Grant's Supermarket in Glen.The green and in some cases gold paper shamrocks are hanging from the windows, the walls and even the ceiling. As of Thursday afternoon, there were about 5,700 of them. They were purchased by Grant's customers to benefit the Muscular Dystrophy Association.And it's a pretty good bet that all of these shamrocks will add up to one Golden Shamrock Award for Grant's for selling the most shamrocks of any store in the state. Grant's won that award a few years back by selling 5,019 shamrocks. The goal this year is 6,000.The Shamrocks for Muscular Dystrophy campaign ends on St. Patrick's Day. A green shamrock is $1; a gold shamrock is $5."It's something the employees know is for a good cause, and they get behind it," said Paul McGonagle, store manager at Grant's. "They ask customers if they would like to buy a shamrock for muscular dystrophy, and there are very few who turn around and say no. They all know how great a disease it is and how great a problem it's going to be to solve it."The cause is dear to McGonagle's heart. His mother died of Lou Gehrig's Disease, which is a form of muscular dystrophy, in 1956.And he knows others with muscular dystrophy now. One of those is 16-year-old Aldon Miller, of Intervale. He and his parents, Donald and Annie Laurie Miller, are regulars at Grant's.Aldon was diagnosed with muscular dystrophy at age 4."He has general weakness," said his mom. "What's difficult for him is going up stairs or getting up from the floor. Balance. Other than that, he functions really, really well."Aldon is a student at Kennett High. His mom said classmates who don't know Aldon probably wouldn't be able to tell anything was wrong "until he gets out of his chair." That seemingly simple act can be a slow and difficult process.As for the outlook for the future, "We're in the wait-and-see category," Annie Laurie said. "There are 40 or so diseases that come under the blanket of muscular dystrophy. His is so rare that we don't even know what type it is. We can only eliminate find out what it's not. I keep saying it's going to be the Miller Syndrome."Aldon makes yearly visits to Boston Children's Hospital to see a team of specialists. "They have his DNA stored so that, as things come up where they can identify new genes, they can test his."Money from the sale of the paper shamrocks goes toward muscular dystrophy research. Annie Laurie appreciates the participation of all stores, but most especially the extra effort by the folks at Grant Supermarket."It's really dear to them," she said. "They're motivated to break their record every year. We're in there all the time. That helps get them pumped up."