Are you ready to rumble…errr… wrestle?

My grandmother was quick to point out a lazy kid when she saw one. If you weren’t sweeping a floor or cleaning out a garage you were essentially useless. Watching professional wrestling, however, got a pass.

Timmy Daddy

By Tim Sullivan

Occasionally, she would plunk down on the couch next to me as I watched Rowdy Roddy Piper, Jimmy Superfly Snuka and Sargent Slaughter as a kid. If George the Animal Steele started gnawing on a turnbuckle she might throw a potato at the TV.

Nan was from a tiny little village called Ballydehob in County Cork, Ireland. In the center of town there stands a statue of her cousin, a storied champion professional wrestler named Danno O’Mahony. He was plucked from rural obscurity and groomed to be an international wrestling superstar in the 1930’s. His signature move, the Irish Whip, is still employed to

Health Briefs

Prevent Blindness Georgia hosted its inaugural “Night for Sight” at the Atlanta History Center in November, raising over $210,000. The evening, emceed by WSB meteorologist Brad Nitz, honored Dr. Tom Harbin with the Scott Pastor Person of Vision Award.

this day.

So, basically, my family is wrestling royalty, or something.

The City of Atlanta has entered the next phase of its pilot program with the World Economic Forum to improve outcomes and reduce costs for patients suffering with heart failure. More than one hundred representatives from healthcare providers, patient advocacy groups, public sector organizations, pharmaceutical companies, medical device companies and academic institutions gathered at City Hall in November and signed a letter of intent for the pilot program. Over the past seven months, the experts have identified the barriers to managing patients in Atlanta suffering from heart failure and have and the smack talk must be edited for TV. I actually felt bad for the actors as they ran out of superlatives for how they plan to destroy their upcoming opponents. And it is all about the upcoming opponent because the program dedicates about half of the evening promoting the next event on the WWE network to make sure everyone subscribes. upstage Brock Lesnar and his “advocate” Paul Heyman. Now, Paul Heyman isn’t even a wrestler. He’s just a guy who gets in the ring and grandstands about another guy for a living. But he eviscerated the poor fool who had just proposed. If she was a Lesnar fan, I’d have to guess she said no.

Now Elliott is 10 and I guess it is a rite of passage because the wrestling bug has bitten my son as well. I had to subscribe to the WWE network and after much badgering we bought tickets to a Monday Night Raw event at Phillips Arena for the whole family. Our friends couldn’t make it so we had two extra tickets and Kristen put them on the neighborhood listserv. Ever the salesman, her post read something like “Ugh. We have to go to this awful WWE wrestling thing at Phillips and have two extra tickets. Anyone?” I would have at least said “are you ready to rummbbulllll?” I think that’s boxing but c’mon, these tickets weren’t cheap!

The Fighting Sullivans: Elliott (top) and Irish wrestling champ Danno O’Mahony (below).

Let me be clear—it may have been the dumbest thing I have ever spent money on and this is coming from a guy who has purchased Wubble Bubble Balls. Watching the match live, the moves in the ring look remarkably fake

I think it is safe to say that most of the people there already subscribe. I saw grown men wearing their own replica championship belts. I saw people boo “villains” about as nuanced as Gargamel. Some guy proposed to his girlfriend in an effort to

There is something to be said about the athleticism of these oversized stuntmen. They are athletic freaks for sure and it is easy to see the appeal they have to kids. But I think I’d rather be forced to watch those ridiculous videos of adults opening toys on YouTube while listening to Fitz and the Tantrums. Wrestling fandom is clearly beyond me. I escaped to the concession stands at one point and asked the vendor—do you get the appeal? She said “nah, but my mom used to have it on all the time. Her favorite was the Junkyard Dog.” worked on solutions. Many organizations, including Grady Health System, Wellstar Health System, Emory Healthcare, Kaiser Permanente, Morehouse Healthcare, Humana, Centene Corporation, UnitedHealthcare, Georgia Health Information Network, Georgia Department of Public Health and DeKalb County Board of Health have signed a letter of intent to jointly implement the solutions over the next five years. The Atlanta Regional Collaborative for Health Improvement and the American Heart Association will co-lead the project.

I don’t know how closely this event would resemble the ones Uncle Danno starred in. Apparently in the 1930’s, wrestling events drew bigger crowds in Boston and New York than baseball games. I like to think the line between a staged event and true sport was perhaps a little more blurred back then but I suppose every spectacle needs an audience right? If Mary Ellen O’Mahony Sullivan could enjoy something as useless as phony professional wrestling, I suppose anybody could.

Positive Impact Health Centers has moved from Midtown to Decatur at 523 Church Street. Since the 2015 merger of AID Gwinnett and Positive Impact, the organization has grown by 78 percent. The new space will better accommodate the rapid growth in patients, services and programming needs for the Atlanta community. The expansion will also provide the square footage for an in-house pharmacy for patients, opening in the near future.

To improve the patient experience and patient outcomes, Positive Impact Health Centers partnered with the SimTigrate Design Lab at Georgia Tech to design the new space with a client-centered floor plan to keep with the organization’s mission of client-centered care for the HIV community. This new layout will help improve patient outcomes and viral load suppression rates by reducing patient frustrations, improving coordination and communication of care between departments, and increasing the amount of patient-provider interactions.

“As a leader in client-centered HIV care, will also be moving to a new facility in November 2017. Stay up-to-date on both moves through positiveimpacthealthcenters. org. The same expert care and outreach will occur in both new spaces. we are excited about the new location and client-centered designed space. After an exhaustive search of Midtown, the agency could not find a location to accommodate the square footage and transportation needs of patients. Decatur was found to have the next highest zip code of those served by the agency,” said Larry M. Lehman, CEO, President, Positive Impact Health Centers. The Midtown Center will close on Wednesday Sept. 20th and will re-open to the public in Decatur on Tuesday, Sept. 26th. For immediate assistance during the move, patients can call the Duluth Center (770) 962-8396. The Duluth Center

HomeAid Atlanta completed three HomeAid Care Days in support of Covenant House Georgia. Care Days, a HomeAid outreach initiative, are volunteerpowered workdays providing free-of-charge repairs and upgrades for homeless service provider facilities. Covenant House Georgia (CHG) serves Atlanta youth experiencing homelessness. Volunteers helped build a meditation garden, built a swing, fixed water drainage issues, painted and cleared overgrown landscape as part of their services days.