6/27/10

The bulk of my day was spent helping a friend out with an event that he had been planning for months.  His granddaughter, a recent high school graduate, is a very talented classical musician.  She plays five instruments and most recently taught herself to play the bassoon.  I'm told that this is very difficult to do.  My friend's father, on the other hand, neither plays an instrument nor recently graduated from high school.  He does, however, like to watch the classical musicians on PBS.  Since he's approaching his one-hundredth birthday, quite a bit of his time is spent watching television, as you might imagine.

So my aforementioned friend came up with a pretty sound idea.  He would buy tickets for his father, his daughter, his granddaughter, and his son-in-law to see André Rieu tonight at the Fox Theatre in Detroit.  I would ride to Mexicantown with the two old guys, where we would meet the others for dinner.  Then, after the meal, we would drop everyone off at the theatre.  The two of us (my friend and I) would take the two cars back to his house in Lincoln Park, then return to the theatre when the show was over.  His daughter's family would take their car back up to Clarkston, where they live, and the rest of us would roll back down to LP in the other car.

As far as plans go, this one played out pretty effectively.  I stopped by my friend's house this afternoon and shot the breeze with his father for a while.  We drove up to Detroit and arrived at El Zocalo right after the heavy rains had moved through.  Dinner was quite good and everyone had an enjoyable time.  Even my friend's father seemed to be yukking it up quite a bit.  This was a change of pace from his typical demeanor since the passing of his wife not too long ago.  Good deal.

Aside from providing an extra body to transport the second car back and forth, I suspect that I was recruited for this evening's mission because I know my way around town.  Apparently nobody else was familiar with the lay of the land.  For an amateur, it can be easy to get thrown off course when moving from Mexicantown to the theatre district.  For a pro it's not a problem.  I am a professional driver, technically speaking, but I'm more of a pro when it comes to ballgames and the dinners that follow them.  The Fox is right across from Comerica Park, so there you go.

Across the freeway on Vernor, past the abandoned train station (an impressive sight, even in it's decayed state), up past Michigan Avenue, onto I-75, back off of I-75, over Grand River, and up to Woodward, no problemo.  We pulled up in front of the Fox and let everyone out, then took the cars back to my friend's house.  After he and I headed back out and did a little running around, we settled in and waited for 9:30pm to come around.  The show was set to end at 9:35pm, so we figured that everyone would be back outside a few minutes after that.  Aside from having to battle some tour buses for position in front of the theatre, this part also went quite smoothly.

My friend and his father got in the car that I was driving, the others took their car, and we all were happily homeward bound.

Now, I told you that fairly mundane story to set the foundation for this observation - dementia is a motherfucker.

I happen to know, from numerous conversations, that André Rieu is a favorite of my friend's father.  Between the old man's stories of killing Japs in the Pacific, he occasionally takes time to talk about beautiful violin concertos and so forth.  Since his wife died, however, he has become convinced that his son is plotting to kill him.  As many of you with elderly relatives probably already know, there are some days when things are a little better and other days when they're a little worse.  My friend went to great lengths to make this a day when things would be a little better.

First of all, he lied to his father and said that the daughter's family had bought the tickets to the show.  Since the idea supposedly came from them and not from my friend, it was a great idea.  Secondly, as far as the old man knew, I was the one who decided to buy everyone dinner tonight.  For some reason that will never be fully explained, I'm held in very high esteem by that guy.  If I offer to buy him anything, there's no way he can be disappointed.

So all of the bases were covered and everything went according to plan.  On the way back to Lincoln Park, after we made our way out of the traffic, my friend asked his father how he liked the show.  Apparently the show sucked, the Fox Theatre is a nightmare, there were nothing but old people at the show and this pissed him off, the restrooms were too far from the seats, he doesn't like that kind of music, etc.  You can see where that conversation was going.  The only positive thing that he had to say was that the usher was a fellow WWII veteran and he moved the four of them to front row seats.  Of course this part didn't actually happen, but he told the story with such conviction that one couldn't help but let him believe it.

My friend is a retired minister who spent several years providing hospice and bereavement counseling to families.  He has seen every step along life's journey from an objective viewpoint, so he'll tell you that this is just one of those things with which he has to deal.  There's no way you can be completely objective when it's your family though.  I'm only partially perceptive, part of the time, but even I can see that this is wearing on him.  He bends over backwards to take care of his father, never receiving as much as a single 'thank you' for his efforts.  He spent two months plotting every last detail of this evening and, as far as anyone knows, his father had a miserable time.  That, as the kids these days like to say, sucks ass.

You know who never seems to have a bad day?  My buddy Sjoe.  I might be starting to understand why.