Choir Concert at Germantown Methodist Church with the Pointers!

Was just talking to my youngest sister Amy Greenwold

who now lives and works in Ashland, OR, at the library.

She was doing a 90-minute walk up a hill, and breathing hard, then turned around, while I was on my exercise bike.... the perfect way to bike. Lowered my blood sugar from 185 to 102.

Later, you'll see why.

She said that Jackson County, OR, where she lives has a huge homeless population. They hang out in the library and she helps them with the computer. She also sees them outside and knows them by name.

Scott routed me to the home of my new friends The Pointers, in Glenside, PA.

Naturally I got lost. Why? Because I headed toward my son Dan's house and got all turned around.

Poor baby.

Teresita and Mo's house was on a high hill with a very steep driveway. She said when they first moved in she was preg with Nicky and was afraid the car would slide down the hill in the ice and snow.

Please! Do not remind me of the winter. The spring is going almost as fast as American Pharaoh who won yesterday's Kentucky Derby.

Ramses, please take a bow.


Here's the horse in 2014.



Nick was already at the church as we drove up. My goodness, the church looks so forbidding from this vantage point. But it was not. It gave off good vibes and smelled of deep old wood.

This church, I see online, was the subject of a PBS documentary on the changing population of the congregation. You must read this, Rob.

Or not. Your choice.

 The highly acclaimed choir director.

 Choir is made of 5 groups of students from The Settlement Music School. They have junior students, like Nicky, and seniors.

 Reason I took this photo is to show the carpet affixed to the conductor's podium.

He played the drums and this African rhythm instrument as the choir sang a bittersweet song about apartheid, accompanied by evocative hand motions such as wiping tears from your eyes.

 The selections were mercifully short. Nothing worse than the same melody going on and on and on. Sorta like my blog posts!

When I saw these kids later, dressed in their spiffy outfits, it seemed to me that they were celebrities! Yes indeed!

Marvelous choices of music included two Bach pieces and a delicious rendering of "papagona" from The Magic Flute by Mozart.

There were dancing songs, one from Serbia about the genocide.

From the B'way stage we had two songs, including something from Phantom of the Opera and also from The Lion King.

There was a 'Holocaust Children Remembrance' song and two sprightly endsongs.

During several songs I was so exhausted I closed my eyes. Tho I did not fall asleep, when I opened my eyes everything was like in 3-D, in another world.

 The choir director. She directs all over the country.

 Huge traffic jam getting out of the room and going downstairs to the feeding trough.

 Terribly long wait in line. Took a shortcut and realized I was on the side of the table where the 'servers' give you what you want. But I wanted that food so bad and I was tired of standing on my feet, so I simply stayed right there and got all the food I wanted.

 Terry and I eat. Soon we'll be joined by son Nicky, below, and Mo. AND her sister Andy, short for Andrea, and her son Rhys (reese), 4, who likes breaking away and running like a race horse into the street.

STOP Rhys STOP, they cry.

I imagine a bloody scene and think, OMG, I've never seen anything so horrible in my life.

 Boarded up Germantown High School. It's huge. Ada's mom Lillian Moss used to teach business and typing here.

Look at this boarded-up rotunda building in Germantown.

Mo and I were walking to his car. Nicky and Terry had left for a poetry reading in Philadelphia.

Mo said he wished the police station around the corner would buy the bldg.

I asked him earlier if, as a black man, he'd ever had trouble with the police.

In his deep voice, he gave half a laugh and said YES!