On February 14, Valentine’s Day, Grateful We’re Not Dead had the great pleasure of entertaining at Carleton Place Manor, a seniors’ residence in Carleton Place, Ontario. The occasion was a two hour Valentine’s Dance for the residents. Now it’s not very often that Grateful We’re Not Dead gets to play for a dance. Usually, we are booked to do a one-hour shows in seniors’ residences so it was an enjoyable experience for the band to see people up dancing to the music. As far as we can gather, the oldest lady dancing was 93 years old and the oldest one in attendance was 100 years old.

Mary Perkins, the Entertainment Co-ordinator at the Manor, greeted and welcomed everyone in attendance. Then the band, whose members had exchanged their normal black shirts and silver ties for red shirts and red ties covered with white hearts, swung into an evening of mixed material – slow tunes, waltzes, rock and roll, material from the 1930s and 40s – and mixed genres – country, rock, blues, MOR. The floor was immediately filled with dancers, walkers and canes were forgotten and the dance was on.

It being Valentines, the band felt that the ladies in attendance that evening were entitled to a special treat. As a result, they set up and artist’s easel with a framed picture hidden by a pink towel covered with red and white hearts. At the one hour break the band announced that Grateful We’re Not Dead had gone to great lengths to have an unique gift for the ladies of Carleton Place Manor and hoped that it would bring joy to their hearts. With that, the following photo was unveiled and passed around the room amidst uproarious laughter. (Sorry about the laughter Gord). With the interest being shown in it, we were almost afraid that we wouldn’t get it back.

As a little aside, it was Gord’s wife, Evelyn, who bought the tie and took the picture a year ago. Gord pointed out to the ladies that Evelyn wanted Gord to wear tie when she gave it to him so he had felt that the appropriate attire was tie only and he was sure this would lead to an entertaining evening. To his disappointment, the only response from Evelyn was to take the picture and the response from the ladies of the Manor was laughter instead of sympathy.

And we’ll leave you now with one more picture showing the action as the band rocked.

See you again soon.
Grateful We’re Not Dead