S-A-T-U-R-D-A-Y, Night! *

I was a busy little bee this weekend. I went to see my maternal grandmother perform with her community choir on Saturday night and met up with my parents, two brothers, and sister. We also sat with assorted aunts and uncles and cousins. It was a regular family hootenanny.

I am guessing that the median age of this choir is roughly sixty four, but I could be low-balling it. They sang some classic show tunes (Sunrise, Sunset), some classic movie songs (My Heart Will Go On, Pennies from Heaven), and some straight-up seventies (Bridge Over Troubled Water, Joy to the World). Let me just tell you this: those seniors rocked some Three Dog Night. They rocked it hard.

My Granny has been singing with this ensemble for thirty years, and she decided that this would be her last year. Her farewell tour, if you will. This final concert also happened to fall on her birthday weekend (today is the actual day), so my aunt tried to get a good number of us to attend the concert. It's a lot like herding cats, but in the end we had a good number of people to stand up and sing Happy Birthday and make her cry in front of the whole audience. We like to make people feel special. And noticed.

After the concert, we went out to get something to eat and I realized how decrepit I have become. We made it to the local diner by 10 pm, and I nearly fell asleep in my food. The last time I was at a diner until 11:30 at night, I was in college (shout out to The Coop!). All the while, we were surrounded by a different set of senior citizens who had come out of some other kind of performance. They were about a thousand times livelier than I was. If last night is any indication, Rob and I have a busy social calendar awaiting us when the kids are grown.

Despite the lethargy, I had a great time and I think my Granny did as well. For a kid who was born two months premature, the sixth of thirteen children, and sent home in a shoebox with her death certificate all filled out and ready to go, she has turned out to be a keeper. She married a great man, had eight kids of her own, and now has forty grandchildren, and nine great-grandchildren (I think - it's like a full time job keeping track of all of us).

Not too shabby, Granny. Happy Birthday!


*and bonus points (which are basically worthless) to the person who can name the band behind the title of this post.

Here is my hot tamale Granny, rocking the two piece at the Jersey Shore, 1945