Thanks for dropping by, Ron and freda..

Thursday night, we had our first Gospel Messengers practice with our new tenor. After two years of searching, with unrelieved failure, it was great to finally be able to sing as a quartet again. It was also badly needed. Joe's (or bass singer) wife Corrie has Alzheimers and it nearly killed him. Her behavior had gotten so extreme that he'd gone a couple of nights without sleep, and finally collapsed from the stress. He couldn't be revived, and the EMS arrived, cut his clothes off and got his heart started. The family and doctors finally accepted that Joe's wife needed to be placed in a health care center where she's been for the last few days. Ruth and I visited Joe and his wife the day before she finaly broke down completely, and it was a hard scene to observe. Joe was still wobbly from his hospitalization and looked like he was 100 years old.
Corrie was almost completely oblivious of us, and just stared off into space. The next time I saw Joe was at practice on Thursday, and he look twenty years younger. He was so overjoyed that we have a tenor again, and he was just beaming, the whole practice. Even better, our new tenor (another Joe) fit in musically, and as a person, from the moment we started the practice. He learned two songs that we're scheduled to sing this Sunday as part of a program titled A Celebration Of Spirituals, and we were excited when he said he wanted to perform with us. I passed out our new ties, and we're ready and rarin' to go. The leader of the doo wop that Joe T(our new tenor) is in is also joining the Messengers, but was out of state when we practiced. We should be full-strength for practice this coming Thursday, because he's back in Connecticut.

Most of all, the timing couldn't have been more perfect for Joe. He was in desperate need of a lift, and he got it, right on time. Not by accident, I think..

Now, we're starting to practice for our 10th Anniversary concert. I wrote a new song last week, building on my revived interest in doo wop, and we have two new songs of mine that could just as comfortably be done by the Penguins.

The Gospel Penguins?

I don't think so...

Jerry