Blaine Senior Center

Like all of us I was saddened by the closure of our Senior Center and by the loss of the society that we have built together within its walls. But life is nothing but change and by our age we should have learned to deal with the good and bad gracefully. I joined the Senior Center for one reason and that was to use the weight room to recover my strength lost from surgery. It was while walking out from a workout that I discovered that there were people playing music in the big room. It was the Tuesday Ukulele group and they sounded pretty good and it looked like fun. All of my life I had wanted to play music but I had never figured out how to learn to do it and I thought that this would be a good opportunity to try. So I bought a cheap instrument and practiced a little bit and went to my first Tuesday afternoon session. No one laughed at my inexperience and they were very supportive of my attempts to play along, in fact Pat Madsen helped me buy my first real stringed instrument. I started playing every week and practicing every day and found out that I could play music good enough to satisfy me and bring some joy to my life. Then Rod Dement asked me to join him and a couple of others to jam on Saturday mornings and the whole Rodney’s Hollar thing took off. It was a lot of fun and we toured most of the other Senior Centers in the county with our show until the Covid crisis shut us all down. When this passes I hope to rejoin my bandmates at the Center and let our songs ring out again. The Senior Center was a godsend to me at a low point in my life and gave me a place to acquire some new skills to help me continue to enjoy life as I continue to age. Be Positive and Stay Negative.