On the second Monday of each month, my father plays his flute at the Cloisters of the Valley nursing home in San Diego. The residents, who are mostly elderly women, are always gathered and waiting for him when he arrives around 10:30 a.m. Marilyn, the activities director, is usually reading items from the newspaper out loud to them. I accompany him on these visits because I like spending time with him and I enjoy hearing him play.
When we arrived today, Marilyn was reading an item about the wildfires in Australia. Then she started walking around the room asking the residents a question. She taped their responses on a small tape recorder. She was asking them to tell about something very naughty they had done when they were children. She was going to write up an article for the monthly nursing home newsletter.
My mind went blank when she unexpectantly came over to me to get my recollection. “Oh, she was a good kid,” my father said from across the room as he set up his music stand. I think he was sensing that I felt put on the spot.
“I need to think about this,” I told Marilyn, “please come back to me.” At first my mind really was blank. And then I started to recall some incidents that weren’t appropriate to share in the newsletter. Instead, I came up with a very tame and completely true childhood story about going into the pantry to steal brown sugar. I would open the Domino’s box and stick my fingers in and scoop it out and then lick it off my fingers. She recorded my story along with my name.
My father played his flute for about 40 minutes. He did a lot of older tunes, music that is familiar to his audience. Today they had a fire going in the fireplace because it was rainy and cool. As far as nursing homes go, this is a good quality one. After my father finished playing, we drove around and did some errands and then I dropped him off at his apartment.
I hope I’ll be able to get a copy of the nursing home newsletter next month. I’d like to read about the naughty things the residents have done. And Marilyn said she also had some very good (naughty) stories from the doctors that work there.
