Yesterday, Tuesday, was like most Tuesdays, another one-hour assisted living job to play. No different than most other days of the week, and therein lies the problem. I looked at the calendar, jumped in the shower, ate a light lunch, hopped in the van and drove 5 miles to the facility. I then loaded the gear on the rock and roller cart, put on my cowboy hat and walked in the front door. A very attractive young gal sitting behind the desk came up to me, gave me a big hug and squeeze, and said "Hi there cowboy - sure glad to see you, but why are you here?" I responded with a gentle hug and said, "just to play and sing for you darlin'" She said, yeah, but you're not supposed to do that till tomorrow. Whoops! I went to the wrong place.Thank goodness I didn't have to play at the other place until two hours later, so I had plenty of time to get there and set up. Whew, that was close. (I still enjoyed the hugs, though. )

When I got to the right location, set up my gear, I was 30 minutes early. The AD said because everyone was already in the activities room, I could begin anytime I wanted, which was fine with me, mainly because I would miss a lot of afternoon rush hour traffic if I ended 30 minutes earlier than usual.

So I fired up and did my usual routine, with the addition of a half-dozen new songs that I had not performed for this audience in the past. Then I got a couple requests, the first for Lucile, and the second, Willie Nelson's Always On My Mind. When I did the second song, the guy that requested it was sobbing, and there were a few others in the audience with tears running down their cheeks. The AD tried to console the guy, and was somewhat successful, but I was not prepared for that kind of response. The AD later told me it was his wife's favorite song, and she just left him to go home for the day and he was a bit meloncholy about it.

Today, I performed the same song at the facility I mistakenly went to yesterday - the results were the same - hardly a dry eye in the place. One of the young nurses came up to me and said "Gary, if there was ever a song you should take off your play list, that is the one. You play and sing it beautifully, but it's so sad and heart rendering that you had everyone, including some of the staff, in tears." That song is now off my NH circuit play list.

There are some lessons I seem to learn the hard way. This was one of them.

Cheers,

Gary