Battling illness, ex-WWU educator finds solace in his music

| ANDY BRONSON THE BELLINGHAM HERALD

• Music man pursues his passion

• PARKINSON'S INFORMATION
  
  More information about Parkinson’s disease is available at the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke site online.
  For those interested in joining a local Parkinson's support group, click here.

He lost his endurance and the mouth control required to blow the strong, swift notes on his trumpet. But more than any physical loss, Biasini could no longer find the joy to play. Music was his life. It had been since he was 9. To have a disease take that away was devastating.

"(I felt) dead, no reason to go on living," he says. "I had resigned myself to the fact that I would never play again."

He donated his sheet music to Western and sold the trumpet and the mandolin.

"It's difficult to regress when you're playing with every expectation of achieving excellence," he says. "Every group I ever played in I ended up in the first solo chair. I was decent. I still wonder if I can recapture that."

A WAY OUT

Biasini grew up on the wrong side of the tracks. You see the railroad ties in the yellowing pictures of his family's home in Johnstown, N.Y.

"My childhood wasn't all that happy," says Biasini, now living in Bellingham. "My summers were spent hauling railroad ties through my backyard to chop up for wood."

And then came Uncle Henry. His wife had kicked him out and he came to stay with the Biasini family. Her loss was Cole's gain. Henry introduced Biasini to the mandolin and gave him daily lessons.

"I was entranced," he says of the plucky twang of the mandolin. "I took it to bed with me. It laid next to me."

Biasini met music. He fell in love. Music was an escape, a ticket to a better place.

"I couldn't be angry when I played the mandolin — that was my refuge," he says. "We were poor, and that was my vehicle for getting out of poverty."

From then on, it was all music. It was as if each note had taken up residence somewhere deep in his brain. Every decision — every thought — revolved around music. Dancing to it, listening to it, playing it, and eventually teaching others to do the same.

Like so many great love stories, Biasini's lifelong affair with music was bound to end in tragedy. But not just yet. When he was young, the years spread out before him like the pages of a symphony. The cadence was quick and sweet; the notes were high and clear.

Biasini picked up the trumpet in high school. He practiced five hours a day — three on trumpet and two hours on mandolin — sometimes until 11 p.m.

"The neighbors would complain," he says. "The police chief would come by and ask my mom to put me to bed, but my mom said I was going to be a big musician."

After high school, Biasini took the music to college, the Navy and then back to college to get his master's.

Music even led him to his true love, Joan. They met while they were on a study abroad music trip in Europe. Like him, she loves music and speaks about it with verve, passion and precision. "I got to like her and I proposed," he says with a wide smile. "I'd only known her for two weeks."

In 1970, Biasini brought his musical skill to Western. But after more than 10 years on the job, he retired.

THE RISE AND FALL

After leaving Western, life was harmonious for the Biasinis.

Biasini was working hard on his inventions for Bellingham company Allsop. His music stand extenders were doing well.

Biasini often suffered stress headaches during particularly chaotic times in his life, but this was not one of them. A local doctor recommended a neurologist in Seattle, where Biasini could go to get treatment for his chronic pain. While looking into the headaches, the doctor discovered something much more sinister.

Something new was coming into Biasini's life, something not even music could defeat.

In 1994, Biasini was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease, which strikes more than 50,000 Americans per year, according to the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke. The disease depletes the dopamine in the brain, leading to loss of coordination, stiffness, slowness of movement and tremors for some.

The change is evident in the way Biasini rocks back and forth in his chair, fiddles with his hands and speaks in a rapid rush to get out the words.

"It's my life. I have Parkinson's disease. It gets me down sometimes," he says. "Worrying doesn't do any good. I take each day as it comes and deal with the present."

The doctor advised rest, and Biasini complied at first, spending his days napping, moping and not playing his music. He emptied the house of the instruments he once loved. His hands could no longer control them.

SOUND THERAPY

But the silence didn't last.

Listening to the jazzy trumpeting of Wynton Marsalis was the spark. Biasini's mind grew restless and motivated to play. He decided to buy a trumpet and give himself back his reason to live.

"It took five years to get back," he says. "But ideas beget ideas, and I got the urge to play again."

As long as Biasini can still lift the trumpet, he has reconciled himself to the way he plays today.

"I didn't care if I couldn't recapture the quality of playing I was accustomed to," he says. "Just being active was therapy. I play expressively, the way I feel."

Now instead of napping, Biasini works busily on his inventions. He has 19 patents, including his music stand extender, a trumpet stand, a violin chin rest and myriad other music products. The constant creative flow of inventing along with his playing keeps him busy, and when he's busy Parkinson's usually doesn't have a chance.

"He's better off this way than sitting in a chair, doing nothing," Joan says.

Once a month, Biasini meets with a Parkinson's support group, but Joan is his foundation more than anything. She worries about the damage done to his body when he falls and the invisible toll on his mind.

"The disease eventually affects everything," Joan says. "It's a long drawn out process for some people; for some people it's a rapid decline."

‘EVERYTHING IS RIGHT…'

Biasini takes his medication several times a day, but Joan says it's still difficult to predict how efficient the pills will be.

Biasini compares the off times, when the medication isn't working, to the painful prickle as blood rushes back into a limb that was asleep.

"When I'm off, my whole body feels that way," he says. "There's no relief."

His only relief is knowing that the off times never last more than an hour or so.

"I have to play when I'm on — on is when the medication is working," he says. "(When I'm) off, I can't write; I can't do anything."

But then he's on. The trumpet comes out, and the memories of the off times fade.

"It's nirvana," he says. "I come out to play when I get tired and tense and frustrated. Everything is right in the world when I play."

Right now, Biasini uses a cane and a walker in the morning and at night. He still stands up from his chair to help a lady remove her coat, but the struggle against gravity is visible.

"A wheelchair, that's the next step," he says. "I fight it a little bit. I have weights."

But even if his grasp on physical control loosens, Biasini knows music will still play a role in his life. His inventions, which require thought rather than physical dexterity, are a constant source of energy for his imagination.

"There are many facets in music," he says. "I can always be active in music as a performer or a listener or a historian."

While he still can, though, Biasini takes every opportunity to get out his trumpet. He no longer practices. He just plays, his eyes looking up to the heavens and closing tightly as his fingers dance over the keys. A satisfied smile spreads over his face when he removes the trumpet from his lips.

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