It was a beautiful day today and the drive out to Crozet (a neighboring town) a the nursing home was beautiful. They are so sweet group although today there was a new elderly man there who when he saw my guitar said, "I'll pick wid ya" and because I have had success before with other residents playing guitar with me, I readily agreed for him to get his guitar and play with me.
I was in the middle of a song when he came back with his guitar but it was horribly out of tune and he strummed and it sounded terrible! I stopped to tell him he needed to tune but he could not hear or understand anything I said. Each time I tried to play, he tried to play along but it sounded like--well, you guessed it, a train wreck. I would stop playing and try to tell him again to tune his guitar but again he just grinned and said, "yes I have a tuner" and did not understand (could not hear me). It ended up that a staff member had to come and intervene. She told him he could play after I was done. And so he sat there for the whole hour with his guitar in hand and completely focused on me to signal him for when the time would be right for him to start playing.
After the last song, I told him he could play now and we sat and listened awhile. I have to give credit to the sweet ladies who sat and politely listened to something i cannot describe.. it was not very harmonious or musically pleasing but after each "song" we all clapped and this seemed to make him happy. It turns out the train wreck brought a new element of endearment to the day and we all seemed to know it.
Have any of you experienced any "train wrecks" lately? Did anyone or anything save the day?
That was a very sweet way to have the man participate and have the pleasure of playing. You and the others were very kind to listen and clap. That probably really made his day!
ReplyDeleteI can't think of any "train wrecks" lately, but I've had experiences where something seemed to be going bad, and it turned out better than expected.