April is the month of showers. We are looking for some but not too many. It is just great that the weather has returned (almost) to what we expect of the season Spring in Florida. On one of our first Aprils here we had the temperatures similar to what we just experienced. They were lower by far than normal. At that time, way back when we were using nephew Rich and Shirley’s home (often referred to as John’s house) we laughed at hearing a disk jockey on the radio complaining about the 40-degree weather. He was saying, “Don’t they know it is spring and this is NOT Florida weather!” For us at that time we didn’t feel it was “cold weather” so we thought the complaint humorous. My how things have changed! We now agree whole-heartedly 40 and below is cold. The time spent here has obviously thinned the blood or whatever and we are a lot more susceptible to lower temperatures than ‘way back ‘ when we first arrived.
It is beginning to feel like we have been here a good part of our lives and can’t believe it is only five years plus. I even was bragging to myself how much I knew about the area that I could now confidently give directions to anywhere in the city. I stopped bragging today when I went completely around in circles because I became disoriented as where I was going and how to get there. But other than that, the general feeling is we are at home and have been for sometime.
The time has passed in such a rush that we can be of two minds: How short a time we’ve been here or we’ve been here seemingly for years and years. We have kept busy. We have made the word ‘retirement’ look obsolete. I have two mornings around 6 AM where I join with other men in fellowship and study. I play the piano once a week at an Assisted Living Home. I play while they eat lunch so they can’t possibly concentrate on the quality of the playing. I do the same twice a month (this month three times since there are five Tuesdays) at a nursing home nearby. It is so near that I can walk to it in nice weather. They are there in wheelchairs or movable gurneys, and since the are pushed by other into the lobby where the piano is, most of the time they express little feelings one way or another about the quality of the playing. I give out hard candy between bouts of beating the keys. I give it only to those who are permitted to have such luxuries. I feel sometimes it is better received, the candy that is, than the forced concert. Yet I do get some smiles and ‘thank- you’s’ that make the journey and time spent feel it is worth the while. There is one guy there who has a devastating smile. The way he smiles and his eyes light up spontaneously when I kid or josh with him is heart warming. It is with such affection as if at that moment no trouble interferes with what is between us as human beings. Bradley is about 43 years of age and is built like a linebacker. He has a full head of hair and large shoulders and arms. If he stood he would probably be around six feet tall. He is in a chair and is paralyzed. He has been that way since he was born. He can move his arms and hands with real effort and tries to speak but only on occasion makes noises. But when he smiles the room lights up. He has been there as long as I have been coming over 5 years. Sometimes when he is not there I shudder to ask about him, since with many others I learn upon asking they have left us permanently. Some I do learn however have just been rehabilitated (The home is a ‘Nursing and Rehabilitation Center’). The lives of the people there accent in spades the blessings we have, we who can walk out of that home and back to our own.
My relating the experience with Bradley brings to mind a counter experience with a grouch. In my playing at the Assisted Living Home I ran into such a person. I may have even told the story in these pages before but it comes back to be now since I have learned the grouch is no longer with us but in heaven. It came about this way.
The entrance to the dining area is two doors wide and before your reach the dining tables there is an area like a lounge on both sides. On the right side is a couch and the piano, on the left chairs along the nearest wall and a couch and soft chairs fill up the rest of it. Some years ago as I entered the lounge area and went over to the piano, there was sitting on the left side just inside the door a resident who proceeded to groan aloud, “Here comes plinkety plink”. That was I, in case it isn’t clear, since to him the so-called music I played was just that, plinkety plinking or some such expression. I went over to the “gentleman” and smiling agreed that in some cases it was so, but I keep trying. I asked him his name and offered my hand. He rejected both offers with a grunt. From then on whenever he was present I would say, “Yes, here comes Plinkety Plink” or agree with him as he said it. I never could get a handshake. I could hear him on occasions offering his opinions on other subjects with just the same attitudes. Sometimes it was the food, or the lateness of the serving, or the table he had been assigned. However after maybe a year of this loving conduct a small miracle happened.
I came one day and the hallway from the entrance door to the door to the dinning area was filled with people on both sides. Down the middle of the hall lay a paper with numbered blocks on it. Then further up the hallway I saw objects of plywood standing on the blocks. They had horses painted on them and on top of the horses were painted jockeys. The residents were having a horse race down the hallway with the aid of dice. I worked my way down the hall and went into the lounge part of the dining area and guess who was sitting there all by himself, our plinkety plink admirer! He was moaning and groaning about lunch being late and the hallway being misused, etc. etc. So I ignored him and started to play some music. Then came the surprise. He started humming a tune. He then asked me do you know “Have You Ever Been Lonely”? I said I’d look for the music”. I found it and played it. He hummed and sort of sung along. I didn’t get any thanks but I felt so good that he was at least tired of complaining about the playing and was some what joining in. In the months that followed he actually acknowledge the fact that I played the song. He didn’t say thank you again but mumbled occasionally that he heard that song. One day some months ago I notice on several visits plinkety plink was not there. I inquired and learn that “Art” was in the hospital. Now I knew his name so I thought the next time I’ll find out what hospital and really surprise him with a get well card. Alas, the next time I asked I was told Art had gone to his reward. I felt sad but he taught me a lesson. Don’t give up on grouches. Perseverance in the form of a smile or a laugh sometimes gets amazing results. It has helped me in dealing with other listeners in the nursing home and elsewhere. It has encouraged me to continue playing even when I feel I am not getting any better at it. A pastor once told me when I said something about very few were there to listen or such, “Play anyway the music goes up and down the hallways and those not there but bedridden enjoy hearing it”. He knew that from being at the bedsides while music was being played in the lounge or elsewhere. He saw the joy in the eyes of those lying there seemingly alone since they now felt they were among the living. I also recalled Father Pat being upset about someone in the Army Company he served as a chaplain. It seems he tried very hard to form a choir. Now Pat was no singer and he knew it but when it came to church music he said rightly so it made no difference. In the course of his organizing one of the members told him about a guy who was professionally trained, in either piano or voice, I’m can’t recall which. Pat approached him about coming on board and joining the project. He declined since the quality of the talent was not up to his, and his needed etc., etc. It angered Pat who thought when it came to just bringing some joy in to the service or the lives of other the quality of your talent was not an issue.
My time is no longer filled with trips to the Golf courses. June and I walk often and try for at least three times a week. I putter around in the grounds weeding, right now mulching, trimming, and feeding the grass food and insect killers. Since my episodes of undefined origins of last Fall, I do not now mow the lawn. My time is devoted to projects like number paintings, audio courses, writing these thoughts each month, and reading. We have a great library system here. They will get you almost any book you can or could possible want. If it is not in the St.Petersburg library system, the go into the county system, and then even to the private and public education library systems. But when I think about it I am not at all that familiar with even Philly’s library system so they may be just as good. My library experience in the past has been with Law libraries only.
Until next time Pax Tecum !