Plans for a Kendal Talent Show

Plans are now under way to mark the opening of the new Amelia Gathering Room with a community talent show. As a first step, the date for the show has been set: Tuesday, September 10. So be sure to circle it on your calendars. It will be an occasion for us to celebrate the opening of our new assembly venue and to enjoy the wealth of talents, skills, and interests that we nourish in our community.

And by “community” we mean everyone who lives or works at or with Kendal at Granville – residents, staff members, board members alike. For this is truly a community event. And all sorts of talents will be on display. 

Thus this invitation goes out to singers, who are encouraged to come forward, perhaps as soloists or perhaps as duets or trios or choirs; and if you need an accompanist, just give the word and one will be found. 

The invitation is extended as well to all who play or played instruments in a band or an orchestra at some point. Here’s a chance to pull it out and surprise your friends. Again, accompanists can be found.

The Amelia Gathering Room will finally offer us the chance to have a piano on a stage, and that in turn affords the pianists in our midst an opportunity to share their gifts more broadly with the community.

We all recall a time when reading or reciting lovely poems or famous speeches was a part of our school education. So here’s a call to reciters in our company to help us recover the rich pleasure of hearing the spoken word deliver moving literature.

Surely some members of the community are comedians, right? Here’s a chance to hone your comedic timing, and to show your friends and neighbors your comic gifts.

And then there are the magicians. More than a few of us over the years have tried our hand at creating illusions. So here’s an opportunity for these prestidigitators to work up the old conjuring stunts and card tricks, and show us that the hand is still quicker than the eye.

This catalog of talent categories is not meant to be inclusive. Almost surely there are still other kinds of talents out in the community, still other kinds of gifts which can be shared. And so the three invitations go out. First, please don’t be shy about stepping forward to identify yourself as a participant; you will have fun, and your friends and neighbors will be delighted. Second, please recruit friends and pass on the names of community members whom you would like to see participating. Third, please mark your calendar and, even if you finally choose not to go up on the stage, join all of us on September 10 as we applaud the gifts of our community. 

Looking Ahead

For almost two years we have been looking ahead to the end of the construction of Phase II here at Kendal at Granivlle.  The project began with a ground breaking celebration and excitement about adding twenty-four new apartment, thirty-two new skilled nursing beds, and eleven assisted living units as well as our longed for Gathering Room and remodeling of the dining area and kitchen.  There was lots to talk about as to design and decor mixed in with the comings and goings of construction workers and supplies. 

Of course, this was accompanied by adaptation to the rearrangement of furniture and routines.  The most difficult part of this was during the work on the dining room and kitchen when the serving area was moved into one dining room which was consequently displaced into the main lobby.  At that time our dining and kitchen staff and maintenace staff really stretched themselves to the utmost to make it all work smoothly for us.  We rejoiced with them when the remodeled areas were open providing us with improved service and a reconfiguration of the space which lessened congestion in the serving area.

As the initial excitement  faded and it all became "old hat"  we began to grow anxious to see it come to an end.  When our Executive Director, and a representative of the construction company gave their regular reports at our Residents' Association meetings, there were invariably questions about "how soon?"   Both of them not only told us what we could look forward to in the next few week  but also patiently answered our questions and responded to occational complaints. 

Late last month we were provided with an opportunity to visit the completed new health center and the new apartments.   Those of us who had been patients in the old health center were impressed with the changes we saw showing how carefully the planners had listened to suggestions for improvement.  We were likewise impressed with the changes  to the apartment plans

Now as the end of Phase II is drawing near we are heartened by the arrival of the first contingent of residents to move into the  new apartments and look forward to the arrival of the others scheduled to move in this summer.  April 29 was a red letter day as the the occupants of skilled nursing were moved into the new skilled nursing beds. 

Constrution on the Gathering Room has progressed to the point where we can look into it through the windows and  see how grand it looks.  We look ahead to the kinds of programs  which can be held there with a stage and a lot more space for both the presenters and the audience.

Best of all we look ahead to the completion of the final phase of this project which began back in the summer of 2011.  According to our Director and construction representative we can anticipate the dedication of all of this at the end of June.  We look ahead to joining together in one really big celebration in our new Gathering Room. 

Kendal U.

On two occasions in recent weeks we've enjoyed visits from faculty members from nearby colleges. They appeared as part of the ongoing program of the Kendal Speakers Committee to bring outstanding academic lecturers to the campus. Both were hits.

Judith Dann, Associate Professor of Humanities at Columbus State University, spoke of her work on an archeological excavation on a Roman bath house in Isthmia, Greece. Illustrated with projected images, the presentation treated both the historical background of the location – Isthmia was important as one of few sites for the staging of the ancient Olympic games – and the nitty-gritty of daily life at the dig. Anyone whose ideas of archeological digs had been shaped by the Indiana Jones epics would have found the collision with reality chastening. But even while dampening expectations of tales about dramatic chases and escapes from Nazi scientists, Dr. Dann conveyed something of the intellectual excitement that comes when careful record-keeping and painstaking sifting are rewarded with an unexpected insight into the social habits and belief systems of people who lived two millenia ago. Residents were able to see the people of ancient Isthmia as neighbors.

Karen Spierling, Associate Professor of History at Denison University, spoke about the Reformation, and she too had a series of projected images to help her deliver her message. Dr Spierling's goal was to complicate people's views of the Reformation. She set out to do this by presenting evidence that undercut the tendency of many moderns to let received and rigid views of the Reformation obscure evidence of interconfessional cooperation and interactions among Catholics and Protestants, and the range of joint projects designed by people in both camps to make daily life in an era of religious quarrels somewhat more pleasant and predictable. She stated that her goal, when she taught college students, was to prepare them for the real world of today in which the complicated social and political circumstances they read and hear about from the media are not reducible to formulaic oversimplifications. The residents appreciated her point of view and applauded her goal.

From the remarks I heard afer both talks I concluded that the residents of Kendal at Granville share an enthusiasm about the importance of education – and perhaps that's not surprising, given the number of retired teachers in our ranks. Even more happily, the residents are optimistic about the future of education. This is important (says someone who is very much a partisan on this issue) because in this era of challenges to many of the foundation stones of the American polity, education needs all the advocates, defenders, and cheerleaders it can muster. Drs. Dann and Spierling have shown us the project is good hands.

Spring Has Sprung at Last

Although spring officially arrived on March 20 the kind of weather we associate with this season of the year delayed its appearance here until April ninth when we had our first really warm spring day.  Until then only a few brave crocus plants had dared to poke their heads above ground and bloom confirming the meteorologists announcement of spring.  With the warm sunny breezes at last the daffodils and forsythia, two of my favorite early harbingers of spring which had been holding out for just such a day began popping out everywhere.  Our periwinkle ground cover around the apartment complex here at Kendal became like a carpet of bright sparkling blue flowers.  In the enclosed garden area by the health center buttercup yellow dandelions appeared to the dismay of the landscape committee. 

As my son was driving me to a medical appointment in nearby Columbus we noted that the trees were not yet showing the early signs of awakening to spring when the stark bare wintry look of their branches begins to change to that softer somewhat "fuzzy" appearance they take on as leaves and blossoms appear.  The willows seem to be slow to turn a pale green as they begin to leaf out.  It shouldn't be long now before that changes.

Other signs of spring here at Kendal also have put in their appearance as the fencing around the construction areas at each end of our complex finally came down.  With them went a lot of the clutter outside our buildings giving us a promise that green grass and other landscaping will begin to take the place of the bare ground once more around our main building. 

Even more exhilarating has been the moving in of residents into three of our new apartments  with others to follow soon.    It's exciting to be able to greet these newcomers to our community.  We anticipate gettig to know them and integrating them into our family.  They will bring new energy to us.

Suddenly "spring has sprung" bringing with it an air of  a renewed hope for the future. 

Jessye Norman

Last Sunday afternoon Jessye Norman sang at Denison University. A large number of Kendal residents attended, determined not to miss a concert by one of the premiere singers of our era. We were not disappointed. At sixty-seven, Ms Norman has shifted from the operatic roles that brought her acclaim – Sieglinde, Dido, Ariadne – to more intimate numbers, and for this occasion she sang highlights from the great American songbook. 

The performances were memorably lovely. Pieces by George Gershwin, Richard Rodgers, and Harold Arlen; tributes to Odetta and Ella Fitzgerald – all these and much else offered in a voice that is rich in lowest register, stunning in its upper reaches, and thoroughly under control all across her magnificent dynamic range. She was a chanteuse without compare.

She wore a grand, rich gown that sank to the floor, and she swept it around with her hands as she walked. She spent much of the concert seated on a bench or standing at bend in the piano. She never moved abruptly. But on occasion she would stand free, in the middle of the stage, to let the rhythm of a piece touch and move her entire body. The effect was stunning.

She offered two encores – "Summertime" and "Amazing Grace." On that second number she sang two verses and then invited the audience to sing the first verse again while she riffed above us. The effect was astonishing. When the concert was over the audience applauded her rapturously – and with respect to some in the audience I use that word with its literal force. 

As we drove home on the Kendal bus a thought occurred to me. Several years ago René Fleming, today's reigning prima donna, had appeared at Denison and sung "I Could Have Danced All Night" as an encore. She too had invited the audience to join in on the melody while she soared above us, with similarly electrifying effects. So now, I reflected from my quiet bus seat, I can accurately say that I've sung with both Jessye Norman and René Fleming. What more can life offer?

An Afternoon with Switchback

Martin Mc Cormack and Brian Fitzgerald
Switchback

 

One of the things that makes it possible to work through life's trials and tribulations is to have a backlog of really uplifting experiences  - the kind that fill your heart and soul and mind so that your cup runneth over. Luckily I had one of those here at Kendal on Friday afternoon, March eighth, when we had the good fortune to hear a program of music presented by the “musical partnership of Brian Fitzgerald and Martin McCormack known as Switchback.”  Each of them was an established musician in his own right when they came together twenty-seven years ago.

Both of these personable performers sing and play guitar with Brian switching to mandolin part of the time.  They lived up to their billing as presenters of “An Amazing Mix of American Roots and Celtic Music.” clearly evidencing an extensive repertoire.  As the program unfolded we were treated to a wide spectrum of music ranging from the toe tapping, foot stomping, hand clapping sort to the calm tranquil, quiet meditative, easy listening kind. One could say the selections went from the sublime to the ridiculous.

The program began with a delightful instrumental number called "The Boys of Bluehill", a traditional Irish jig.  One piece that particularly touched my heartstrings was their tender rendition of “I Will Take You Home Again Kathleen.”  My mother often sang Irish songs in her beautiful soprano voice and this one was one of her favorites.  It was from her that I learned it was written by a German for his Irish bride. Thus when Martin said he was going to sing an Irish song actually written by a German, I knew immediately which song he meant. Another of my favorites was “The Umbrellas of Cherbourg” from the romantic pop-art opera which illustrated yet another facet of their talent.

We were also favored with numbers such as “The Wabash Cannon Ball," “Who Threw the Overalls in Mrs. Murphy’s Chowder?” “When Irish Eyes Are Smiling,” and "Moonshiner," an Irish drinking song about poteen, Irish moonshine.  These along with other similar pieces provided opportunities for foot stomping, hand clapping, and singing-a-long.  In addition they mixed in Johnny Cash's "Jailhouse Blues" and an interlude of solo mandolin quiet hymnlike music by Brian for good measure.

Further proof of the extent of their ability was demonstrated when they presented an original composition called "Right Then" which they were inspired to compose in the style of the songs popular in the big band era after visiting the Aragon Ballroom in Chicago.  It took me back to the days when I was dating.

The program ended with their unique version of “Ghost Riders in the Sky.”  It brought to mind a much more robust group of riders than I envisioned when back in the late 1940’s my roommate and I were lucky enough to have our dates take us to hear Vaughn Monroe sing this when he brought his band to Toledo. 

For me it ended too soon because it cut short my walk down memory lane.   For that is what I was experiencing as they played and sang.  Each number evoked a special memory since music has been at the center of my life. I grew up in a family where music was valued, I met my husband playing the cello in the Sunday School orchestra he directed and much of our courtship consisted of attending concerts or other events  where he was playing or directing music.   Needless to say a wide variety of musical activities were a vital part of our married life.  Music has become the fabric that binds my heart, soul, mind and body together.  Without music my life would be unbearably empty.  Thus I feel it a privilege to find myself in the presence of musicians with what I perceive to be kindred spirits like those of Brian and Martin.  And so it was these two Irish men charmed me with their music and helped to make me whole.  Not only me but from the reaction of the audience I would say most of them were also charmed.

Testing!

Believe it or not, this really is a test. We've been having some difficulty with our procedures here, and so posting this message is part of an effort to get to the bottom of the problem.

BTW, here at Kendal we're gearing up for the imminent arrival of residnts for our new apartment wing!