Because of the holidays I have had two weeks off from my volunteer job at the Interfaith Pharmacy which supplies meds to those with heart disease, diabetes, high blood pressure, or who have suffered a stroke, at no cost. The recipients are really poor, have no insurance, are in drug rehab, just released from prison, or really blindsided by the cost of medicine beyond their means. I do intake, i.e. screening applicants for our service and inputting their info. into the computer system which stores it as well as make a hard copy file. It can be heartbreaking, but in the long run it's a rewarding morning. However, it does involve asking tough questions and only occasionally turning someone down based on the guidelines of the program. I've been doing this for a little over six years, and volunteered there since before the program opened doing other tasks. Anyway, this morning went well.
I came home to let the dogs out because the temp had come up and to have a quick lunch. Then I went to a concert at St. Mark's Cathedral, my church, sung by the Whiffenpoofs. If you ever have a chance to hear them, don't miss it if you can. They will fill your soul. Of course, the repertoire was quite different from what one normally hears in church. They did do one version of Ave Maria which was new to me; but there were also four drinking songs, and the first was Czech during which they made their entrance from the back of the church, up the steps and positioned themselves in a horseshoe formation in front of the choir stalls; other songs were Midnight Train to Georgia, McNamara's Band, what I call the stuttering Bye, Bye, Blackbird, and one about Mary (?), Maude, and Mabel who swear off Harvard and Dartmouth men and save themselves for Yale men. There were some others which I don't recall, but my favorites were "I'll Be Seeing You," that heart wrenching song from WWII and, the closing number was the fourth drinking song, "Whiffenpoof Song." Before they sang it they invited any alums to come sing with them, and there was one man, maybe 80ish, who joined them vigorously. There were probably about a thousand people there, and we were enraptured by them. They exited during their standing ovation. (If you don't know about the Whiffenpoofs check them out on Google. This is their 100th anniversary year.)
Why was I so eager to see and hear them. Well, dear ones, long ago in the dim and distant past I dated a Yale student. He was home on summer vacation, and I was working for a local doctor, a Harvard man. This was during my college drop out days. Anyway he was a wonderful date, lots of fun, and he told me so much of the Yale lore. We had more dates over his Christmas holidays, but I knew when he went back to Connecticut that that was the end of the romance. But, it had been a great time. Every "blue" event we went to during the summer and that winter had a moment when all the "Eli's" gathered in a hushed reverence and with great solemnity sang "The Whiffenpoof Song," complete with arms over the shoulders and rocking side to side. And they capture you, seemingly momentarily but really forever, in their myth.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=99174276
Yes, they looked like this: cut-aways, tails, gloves and all. And I have been bouncing all the rest of the day. Wish you could have been there too.
Happy Birthday, Goo.
