Thursday, February 02, 2006

Of songs and seniors

Singing to a group of seniors is as entertaining for me as it seems to be for them. Tonight I went to a seniors independent living apartment where they gather monthly for a "devotional" time. With me came by very good friend (to sing 2 duets with me) and a young friend of hers to play the piano.

One lovely lady told me at least 8 times that she was 90 years old and still did her own cleaning, because, you know, she has no one to help her. She told me 3 times that her doctor said she had the body of a 50 year old. Then she told me another story about her cleaning process that she repeated twice, consecutively, in exactly the same words. What a dear. That will be me in 40 years I think.

The other was a fellow who sang to the tune of a different drummer. When the song leader announced we would sing verses 3 and 4 of the hymn, this gentlemen proceeded quite on key in a very strong voice to sing verse 2. We stopped between verses and the leader again loudly announced that we would sing verse 4 as the last, but the singing senior continued on verse 3. In the next song, his view of the rhythm was quite different than what was actually written so by the time the rest of us got to the chorus, he was already well into the second measure. At least he was on pitch!

Afterwards, he thanked my friend profusely for her strong alto voice. (I sang alto). He proceeded to say that he could pick her voice out perfectly from the two of us. We both just smiled and nodded, thanking him for his comments.

Ah, the brain is such a mystery. I hope I still have a working one in 40 years.

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