How nice of you to drop by, Mary! I'll be sure to leave a light on in the window and a well-stockexd refrigerator.

I had a wonderful day today. Joe and Frankie come up here to our home (an hour's drive) for food and music, in that order. This last year has been very hard for both of them, with serious health problems in their families. It's hard to believe, but this is the first time that they've been able to come up here for practice in nine months!!!! They love coming up here, and Ruth sets a veritable smorgasbord of food for the. We have a large, sunny "great" room where we practice, and it's like a vacation for Joe and Frankie. I almost thought we would have to cancel again today because Frankie fell on a rake that pierce his leg, just below the knee cap. He's still in a lot of pain and was hobbling around, but he gritted his teeth and came. We've scheduled close to a half a dozen practices here in the last three or four months, and had to cancel every one for some, good reason. I could especially see how much it meant to Joe to get away from the stress he is under, and just relax, eat and sing. Despite fumbling around a little to remember our harmonies at the start of a couple of songs, we sounded strong and confident. That comes from ten years of singing together.

After we finished eating, we listened to several cuts on the Sentinels CD, and Joe and Frankie are both excited about having a couple of the guys sing with us. When we finished practice, Frankie asked if he could hear some more of the Sentinels CD, and I thought they'd never leave. And I was in no hurry for them to go, because we were having such a wonderful time. Afterwards, I called the tenor in the Sentinels who has asked if he can sing with us, and he had just been waiting until our practice was over to call me. We're running in to a potential conflict with practices this week, so we may have to wait until next week to get together. But, everyone is excited. Feels good.

Tomorrow the three of us sing with the Men's Chorus we're all members of. We'll be singing to celebrate the 104th birthday of one of our church "Mothers," and we'll have a great time. And of course, Ruth always comes.

Life is good.

Forget the Life Of Riley
I'll take the Life Of Rasmussen, any day

Jerry