Barbara, my wife, checked with Pontotoc Hospital Nursing Home staff on Christmas Eve to find out if anyone had asked about entertaining the residents the next day. No group had made a similar request, so we told them we would be there around 3:30 pm.
There are enough talented players and singers in my family that they could do without me, but what I didn't know was nobody wanted to put together a list of songs, let alone the words and/or music to the songs. I often fly by the seat of my pants, but with respect to music, I'm not comfortable doing so.
"We'll do some Christmas songs and hymns that you'll know," they said, "You don't need the music."
In my formative years, I learned a lot of hymns and popular songs about Christmas, but I only learned to sing the melody. I would be a full-fledged adult with two children, before I learned to sing the bass line of a hymn. There are people who can harmonize with the melody of a song, without sheet music, the fist time they hear the song. I can't.
Rayanne's husband Anson sang Mary Did You Know. They are pictured at right.
We billed ourselves as the New Carter Family, so as not to confuse anyone familiar with the Carter Family of the pre-Great Depression era.
About halfway through our program, I decided to live-stream the music on Facebook. Had, I not done so, you wouldn't be viewing pictures along with this story.
The size of our group was as large as the number of residents in the Activity Room, but some residents had family members who accompanied them.
Some of the residents joined us in singing and later thanked us for coming to visit them. We certainly enjoyed our first public performance and will likely make entertaining the nursing home residents an integral part of Christmas 2019.
