When: Monday, Aug 18, 7:30pm EST

Where: https://youtube.com/live/4zTIMyw4KR4?feature=share

Who gets 10%: Minuteman Senior Services https://minutemansenior.org  

http://paypal.me/vancevancevance or https://venmo.com/vancevancevance or VanceFunder P.O. Box 17, Arlington, MA 02476

*PRIVATE COACHING AVAILABLE - Contact me (vance@vancegilbert.com) for songwriting, performance, and voice coaching.

***CUSTOM SONGS - Expensive, but sure, you want one about you or your family or something.

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DEAR ELEANOR,

Thanks so much for this hat!

I’ll never forget the day you were driving past me and Roscoe and Bessie as we jogged/trotted down Millet St. It was winter, your window came down and you thrust your hand out the window with “Put this on”.
There was no ...”or you’ll catch a death of cold”, or “if you insist on running all over the neighborhood”.

You just handed me the hat.

It’s hard work to not make wakes and funerals about yourself. It’s someone’s final time, and you’re human, and you do what you can to reflect upon them. But that is done through your eyes and mind, so it is impossible to totally extract yourself from the equation. Particularly if you’re someone people in the neighborhood think is “famous” or someone else in the receiving line says “Ohhh hi Vance - I remember the time I saw you...” So when I go to a neighbor’s wake, like Eleanor’s here, I’ll hang back over my partner’s shoulder as kind of an accessory, occasionally mentioning the hat to a daughter or kin that I recognize, but otherwise, fairly successfully balancing the scale so that it was about them and not about anything else in my life's swirl. This should be a cinch, as this woman and her husband made their way here from P.E.I. in the early 60’’s when this farmland hosted but a scattering of houses, her a local nurse, oh the history and a well-lived 90 years!

So when your daughter Joanne said in the receiving line, "Vance, my mom knew about what you’re going through, and she kept a little book with names of people she needed to pray for, and she did that daily until she couldn’t”, sure, it was about me for a minute. My hand went over my mouth and the tears came and I didn’t know who to thank, but I made the promise to myself to wear this hat today.

Plus it looks good with this shirt.

Love Always,
Vance