Celebrating 75 years
My 75th birthday began with a benefit concert to raise funds for forty Safety Patrols at nearby Crosspointe Elementary School to visit Washington DC in May. For the past two years I have given “Piano for Patrols” recitals in my home. This year I reserved the main ballroom at our Quail Ridge club. About 150 people attended.
Nasser Rossman, a prize-winning flutist at Park Vista High School, whom I have been accompanying for the last year, played Mozart’s Flute Concerto in G Major and Philippe Gaubert’s Fantaisie. His artistry immediately captured the audience and earned that rare and precious “moment-of-stunned-silence-before-thunderous-applause” for each piece. Nasser is the son of Courtney Roper, the marvelous Volunteer Coordinator at Crosspointe, where I serve as an accompanist and a reading tutor. Between Nasser’s two pieces I played Brahm’s Intermezzo in A Major (Op. 118, No. 2).
The final number was The Room Where It Happens from the musical Hamilton by Lin Manuel Miranda. Three 5th graders from Crosspointe portrayed Alexander Hamilton, Thomas Jefferson, and Aaron Burr, respectively, and related the story of an early American compromise. The audience responded enthusiastically; several told me they shed tears.
Crosspointe principal Dr. Annemarie Dilbert introduced school personnel and thanked Quail Ridge for hosting the concert. Just coming to the Club, she said, made the kids feel important. Many Club members told me they appreciated the talent and positive attitudes of the students and their teachers. The kids brought me a clever birthday cake made of cupcakes and sang “Happy Birthday.” Over 90% of this school’s enrollment qualifies for free or reduced-price lunches. The concert raised enough to ensure that all forty kids will get four days to explore the wonders of our nation’s capitol.
At the concert I introduced seven members of my family who had come from Texas: my brother Joel and his wife Elisabeth, Shelby, Sean, Stephen, Thomas, and Sean’s mother Nancy Eidson. We enjoyed a festive dinner at the club that night. The next morning David and Leslie arrived with Margot and Nina–Nina somewhat hampered by a new pink cast on her left arm. That evening two chefs from A Touch of Spain served tapas, paella, and flan to family and friends on the patio. Note how relaxed Steve and I were at this birthday party.
Leslie brought gorgeous roses and took this photo of the family the next day on the Delray Beach pavilion. Beneath the shadows are a dozen smiling faces. It was a beautiful “green flag” St. Patrick’s Day!
By Monday morning, all but Elisabeth and Joel had departed. While Steve golfed, we visited nearby Wakodahatchee Wetlands. There we shared the joy of newly hatched herons and spotted egrets in their nuptial plumage.
On Tuesday morning, March 19, my actual birthday, Claire and Bill Stitt, friends since 1968, arrived from Ft. Myers. Heavy rains failed to dampen our spirits. We six visited the new Norton Museum of Art in West Palm Beach. Sitting down to lunch at the Norton’s top-notch restaurant, we spotted Dee Winokur, another Washington friend from the early 1970s. Here are snapshots from that day and from earlier visits with Lilli, Violet and Nina Pitkin. Nina, who celebrated her 75th on March 4, and I even found the museum’s Fountain of Youth!
Celebrations seem to be in my DNA. In 1978 my brothers and I hosted a surprise party in Amarillo TX for our mother’s 75th birthday. I organized a party for Joel’s 75th in Dallas in 2011. Last December I hosted Elizabeth’s Lodal’s 75th in Boynton Beach FL. Two months ago I flew to Dayton Ohio to celebrate Marjo VanPatten’s 75th and to Charlotte NC to celebrate Allene Cooley’s 70th.
The celebration continued as Claire and I visited the Downton Abbey exhibition in West Palm Beach and discussed books. Shortly after the Stitts left, Bob Easton, a classmate at Rice, and his wife Joan arrived for a short, but wonderful visit. My 75th birthday celebration is now complete. Fond memories of sharing art, music, birds, and flowers with family and friends, plus receiving gifts, cards, calls, and checks for Crosspointe Elementary School inspire me to repeat this ancient prayer: “Blessed art Thou, Lord God of the Universe, for bringing me safely to this day.”
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