A DeLorean? At Wizard World?

Sep 3, 2012

When you entered the main lobby at this past Wizard World Chicago, there were three vehicles that immediately drew the attention of any patron over the age of forty (and everyone else too). You could see a replica of the original Batmobile from the 60’s TV series, The Ghostbusters station wagon, and a recreation of the DeLorean time machine from Back to the Future.

You could pay to take a close up picture with any of these vehicles, but I chose the DeLorean, as Back to the Future has always been one of my favorite movie series from the 80’s. In the photo I’m trying to recreate Marty McFly’s classic pose while my daughter prepares to zip us back in time. It was a great time, there was a professional photographer who took several photos, and they also allowed us to take as many of our own pictures as we wanted.

As I found out, the money collected at the convention went toward the Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research through Team Fox, the fundraising arm of the foundation.

The couple driving the DeLorean from place to place for fundraising activity is Terry and Oliver Holler, from the website ToTheFuture.org.

The story of Michael J. Fox is inspiring. Mr Fox lives each day with the disease, and spends his time continuing to work as an actor, raising a family, and supporting the foundation he began to help others with Parkinson’s.

The Foundation’s website offers this description of Parkinson’s, for those unfamiliar:

“Parkinson’s disease is a chronic, degenerative neurological disorder that affects one in 100 people over age 60. While the average age at onset is 60, people have been diagnosed as young as 18. There is no objective test, or biomarker, for Parkinson’s disease, so the rate of misdiagnosis can be relatively high, especially when the diagnosis is made by a non-specialist. Estimates of the number of people living with the disease therefore vary, but recent research indicates that at least one million people in the United States, and more than five million worldwide, have Parkinson’s disease.

Parkinson’s disease was first characterized extensively by an English doctor, James Parkinson, in 1817. Today, we understand Parkinson’s disease to be a disorder of the central nervous system that results from the loss of cells in various parts of the brain, including a region called the substantia nigra. The substantia nigra cells produce dopamine, a chemical messenger responsible for transmitting signals within the brain that allow for coordination of movement. Loss of dopamine causes neurons to fire without normal control, leaving patients less able to direct or control their movement. Parkinson’s disease is one of several diseases categorized by clinicians as movement disorders”

The story of Terry and Oliver Holler and how they got involved with Team Fox is on their website, but in a nutshell Oliver discovered that he had terminal cancer and was given six months to live by his doctor. Oliver and his wife accelerated his “Bucket List” and built the DeLorean themselves. Happily, the doctor’s timetable was wrong and the couple decided to take their creation and join with Team Fox to help raise funds for the research into the disease that has struck the man who had inspired them to build the DeLorean in the first place.

To date, the Hollers have raised over $100,000, all of which has been donated to the foundation. Today they spend most of their time touring the country and raising money for the foundation. They have visited forty-eight states and four countries in the DeLorean.

Parkinson’s is a terrible disease, as many as one million Americans suffer from Parkinson’s, but with the help of organizations like the Michael J. Fox Foundation, and fundraising groups like ToTheFuture.org, they are making progress toward a cure. The next time you see a time machine parked at a convention, consider grabbing a picture. The money collected goes to a worthy cause.