 |
|
 |
 |
 |
|
Ageless Joy
“You made me love you, I didn’t want to do it, I didn’t want to do it. You made me want to. And all the time you knew it.” “I have a very bad voice but I love to sing,” said Schiff, who turned 93 last month. “It makes me feel happy and stays with me through the day.” Schiff is one of about 20 singers in the chorus at the Hallmark senior residence in Battery Park City, a group led by Lisa Ecklund-Flores, the director of the Church Street School for Music and Art in Tribeca.
“When I sing, it does something for my soul,” grinned Helga Bock, 82. It does something for the chorus director, too, whose days at her ever-growing school are increasingly filled with fundraising and administrative duties and less with the rewards of teaching music. “It’s the high point of of my week,” said Ecklund-Flores, a licensed music therapist with a Ph.D. in developmental psychology. “It’s one of the times during the week when I am still a music educator, when people can join me in my love for music and discover it in themselves.” Singing is healthy for older people, Ecklund-Flores, said. It increases lung capacity, and improves cognitive functioning, memory and mood. But the singers credited Ecklund-Flores with making the chorus such fun. “She’s the cutest thing,” said Myron Barrick, 86, glancing over at the director. “If I was 40 years younger she’d be in a lot of trouble.” Memory Is Rekindled By A Special Song
When Lisa suggested “Begin the Beguine” I yelled out, “That’s my wedding song!” But it wasn’t until a few months ago, when I learned the words, that I understood why my husband, Saul, picked it for the first dance at our wedding. I was 17 years old when my mother took me on vacation to a hotel in the Catskills. A handsome busboy named Saul was taking care of our table and he said I was nothing but trouble. If I was brought vanilla ice cream he had to take it back because I wanted chocolate. If the waiter brought me chicken I wanted duck. And besides that, my mother was a very poor tipper. But in spite of that Saul asked me for my telephone number and when the summer was over we began to date. His father rented a garage to store pushcarts and Saul would help move the pushcarts out at 4 on Sunday morning, then go to teach Hebrew in Brooklyn, and come over to my house around noon. Usually I would still be sleeping. After two years I decided I wanted to date other boys. It was during the war and when I told Saul the news he gave up a religious deferment and joined the Navy. I began to date my brother’s life-long friend, Arthur. After a while he proposed and I accepted. The invitations went out and everything was ready for a wedding. I don’t know why but seven weeks before the wedding I realized I couldn’t marry Arthur and the wedding was called off. My mother and stepfather were very angry at me. Saul was stationed in Washington, D.C., and he won two prizes in the USO. One was a long-distance phone call and the other was a box of cookies. He used the call to talk to his mother and sent me the box of cookies. His roommate, Tony Falcone, said to him, “What if she’s married?” and Saul’s reply was, “Let her kids eat the cookies.” When the cookies arrived I wrote a thank-you note. When Saul got my letter he said to Tony, “I’m a married man.” He came home on leave and we began to date.... Now I know he chose “Begin the Beguine” because it reminded him of how sad he had been when we parted. Here are some of the words: Clouds came along to disperse the joys we had tasted,
[Home][Back][Search] [Advertise][Contact] The Tribeca Trib · 401 Broadway, 5th Floor · New York, NY · 10013 · 212.219.9709 |
