Young@Heart & the Year I Didn’t Change the World

If you’re only in this for the review of Young@Heart, skip down to the next bold sentence, ’cause I’m about to intro it with some long, rambling history. It’s my blog. I can do it if I want to.

I think it was my junior year of high school when my friend Susie came to me with an idea.

“You know that retirement home? The one they just built on Tamarack? You think you and I could go over there once a week and volunteer?”

At least I think that’s how it went. I really don’t remember. It could’ve been my idea. It could’ve been her youth minister’s. All I know for sure is we were young and fired up about changing the world. We’d talked about it on a regular basis with our regular group of friends:

There was Susie, who was my age and had moved to Oklahoma from Florida the year before. She sat behind me in Mrs. Herring’s English class the first day of our sophomore year — her first day in the Altus Public School System, both of our first days in Senior High School. I’m not sure how we became friends, but it didn’t take long. We even had these spiral “note” books that we traded back and forth throughout the day — the writer’s version of passing notes. The outside was graffitied with the code names we’d given our crushes. (Susie shuffled through a new crush each week. I kept my heart invested in just one or two.) Susie’s notes to me were usually about whether or not so-and-so’s look across the cafeteria meant anything. Mine were usually about faith, true love, transcendence, or dealing with her father’s abandonment. (I was always a serious kid, but I made way more jokes than the rest of us too.)

Then there was Kara, whom I’d been friends with since the 3rd grade. I’ve mentioned her before.

I completed the female portion of the group.

In the guys’ corner, you had C.C., whom we all know and love; Jeremy, who was a year older than me and the son of one of my mom’s closest friends; Erin, who was 2 grades/3 years older than me and a saxophone player; and Jacob, also 2 grades/3 years older.

The guys had a singing group called Generation X that did songs like “The Door,” “Swing Low Sweet Chariot,” and “Crucified with Christ” in churches all across Oklahoma and Texas. They even went to Colorado a few times. We girls served as their groupies/roadies/merch table staff/mockers of faces and hand gestures.

(Yeah, I know how incredibly dorky that is. But let me just ask: “Have you been to Altus?”)

Of course, we went through crushes and dating each other because, well, we were in high school and members of the opposite sex. Susie and Erin even got married right after graduation. But the rest of us (for the most part) worked through the “tension” pretty quickly. We didn’t really hang out that much at school, but we spent every weekend together and plenty of week nights.

I could be wrong, but I think I ended up being closer to each person on an individual basis that they were to each other (save Erin and Susie, of course), because I spent more one-on-one time with each. Part of that was because we usually hung out at my house. I had to be home by 9:30 on week nights and 11:00 on weekends, but my friends could stay over much later. Kara and Susie had a curfew, but the guys would stay over talking and watching movies for hours.

But no matter how close we were on an individual basis, those late nights of Spades and movies and CD burning often ended with deep, spiritual conversations. Conversations that got us girls thinking about how we could change our world by changing our town. We were going to befriend the Saturday morning Western Sizzlin regulars. We were going to pick up litter. We were going to paint houses. We were going to knock on doors. Nothing was going to stand in our way.

But Susie’s idea was the one that stuck.

Her mom took us over to the retirement center and explained the we just wanted to visit with the residents once a week. The director thought that was a great idea, and before we knew it, Susie and I were spending three afternoons a week playing the piano, serving meals, and holding Skip Bo cards. Kara joined us after a few months.

Toward the end of our senior year, the retirement home was sold and turned into nursing home. The change brought new staff and rules for volunteers. We couldn’t just come and play games and listen to stories. We had to go through hours of training and several care courses. We had to get shots, have blood taken, get regular tests. Maybe we shouldn’t have quit going, but we were all about to graduate and leave town anyway. By the time we would’ve completed the training, it would’ve been too late.

I’m not telling you this so you’ll think I’m a saint or that my friends and I changed the world. We didn’t. We didn’t even go in there with the right mindset. But some great things did happen. . . .

A few years before, I’d spent the summer in San Antonio at Wilford Hall Medical Center with my mom and my grandmother, waiting for my grandfather to surrender to bone cancer. I’ve never been sorry that I spent those long, hot days with Granddad before he died.

I don’t know what I expected when I agreed to go with my mom, but I know that I treasured sitting beside that hospital bed, listening to Granddad talk about flying bombers in WWII and honeybees and the feed for the birds back home in his yard. I felt something warm inside me every time he called me his “little nurse.” I even treasured being there when the morphine took over his brain and that morning I woke up in the guest bed of his house and just knew he was gone.

I didn’t know it at the time, but my being there wasn’t just about spending time with my grandfather. I played hours of Rummy with Grandmom in the waiting room. She and I watched the Christy mini-series together that summer, took countless walks around the hospital grounds. At the time, I thought we were doing those things because she figured someone ought to entertain me in the midst of all the medical talk and sadness.

Later, my mom told me she had brought me to San Antonio with her so I could help Grandmom take care of herself.

I think that was what I was hoping would happen when we walked in the Tamarack Retirement Center too. And maybe it did. But I know for sure that I gained something intangible from serving Mr. Peterson his nightly dinner of cookies and ice cream while he told me about his days as a principal; escorting Ms. Lewis to her beaux, Mr. Wilcoxen’s, room; taking piano requests and forgetting about whether or not I could play them well; reading novels aloud week-to-week; and getting Mrs. Cunningham all riled up in a game of cards: “Are we girls gonna play or just sit here and yak all day!?”

And I discovered that I really love senior citizens.

That love is what led me to go see Young@Heart last weekend.

Steve asked me for a review or a recommendation, but I don’t know how much more I can say without giving too much away. Here’s what I’ve already said:

“After all that shopping, I went over the The Angelika Film Center and watched Young@Heart, a documentary about an internationally traveling chorus of senior citizens, who average 80-years-old and sing their own renditions of songs by artists like Radiohead, James Brown, The Clash, and The Ramones.

“I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a documentary in the theater, and I’m certain I was the youngest audience member by at least 30 years, but I enjoyed it. Of course, I’ve got a huge soft spot for senior citizens.

“Basically, the movie follows the chorus as they learn new songs in preparation for a big show. Between the rehearsals, the documentarist interviews the chorus director and members, travels to their homes, talks with their family members, visits them in the hospital, laughs at their jokes, gets the inside scoop on love after 70, barely resists a 93-year-old’s advances, and even lets the only one with enough eyesight left to have a driver’s license take him for a spin.

“Watching them perform and learn new songs is entertaining, but the heart of the movie is in the twinkle in these old timers’ eyes as they unleash the charm and most especially in what they have to say about living and the power of making music. In fact, I wish they’d spent even more time behind the scenes than they did.”

There’s not just a ton of action going on, so saying much more about the “plot” would spoil it. But I can say that the audience really enjoyed themselves. They laughed. They were taken aback. They gasped. They awed. They applauded. One of them even shouted, “YES!” I try to refrain from getting too physically involved with a film, but I enjoyed it too.

I was proud of the chorus members by the end and wished I’d gotten to know them more. Since it’s a documentary, I came home feeling like I’d just started relationships with 20 or so senior citizens, and it reminded me of how much the time I spent with the residents at Tamarack Retirement Center meant to me.

That’s what I liked the best about it. But I think it’s probably enjoyable and worthwhile even without that kind of connection. Some of those old timers are down right funny and watching them perform — even a song you don’t really like — is bound to make you smile. If you can make it through their first dry run on “I Feel Good” without laughing, well, you probably shouldn’t even be at a movie like this one in the first place.

The chorus’ journey to the big show is accented with failure and triumph, and while it’s more subtle, the interviews with the members give a glimpse into their individual journeys filled with the same. What’s really interesting is the fact that most of the members don’t even like rock n’ roll. They prefer classical and opera. But they all love being a part of Young@Heart because it gives them something to belong to and work for. Singing gets them through.

Like any documentary, the hour and 47 minutes doesn’t whiz by. It even feels long in some parts, but not so long that you’d rather give up and not see if they master those new numbers and if they’re all able to make the show. Like I said before, I’d have liked to have seen more of their personal stories, but there’s enough in there for you to put together their emotional stories, if not the exact details of their lives. Plus, a few of the members have enough spunk and spirit to carry the whole film.

In the end, I’d say if you like senior citizens and if you’re interested in true stories and/or the aging process, Young@Heart’s a good choice. And while it’s not outright at all, I think there’s plenty to glean about pastoral care and self care.

Man, this care business is creeping up everywhere!