My mom and I invited her sister, Dorothy, to the county fair for an outdoor country music concert. Aunt Dorothy loved everything about that genre of music \u2013 her record collection, the TV shows, and the Grand Ole Opry on the radio. Several months ago, when she stopped humming and whistling her favorite country tunes, my mom and I wondered if she was having health issues. That\u2019s when she was diagnosed with the early stages of Alzheimer\u2019s disease.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
On the night of the concert, Mom and I let Aunt Dorothy know that the star of the show was Eddie Rabbitt, who was in Dorothy\u2019s Top Five of entertainers with his great voice, hit songwriting ability, and good looks. Eddie was performing in the evening on an outdoor stage at the fairgrounds, where everyone brought lawn chairs. My mom set up Dorothy\u2019s chair between hers and mine. Even though our chairs were quite a distance from the stage, that did not dampen Aunt Dorothy\u2019s excitement one bit. She was ready to see and hear one of her favorite country singers in person.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The entire crowd was clapping, chanting \u201cEd-die! Ed-die!\u201d and cheering in anticipation. When Eddie finally came on stage, he immediately went into singing and moving to his first song. The expression of delight on Dorothy\u2019s face could have illuminated the entire evening fairgrounds. During Eddie\u2019s second song, Aunt Dorothy started making comments. \u201cHe\u2019s looking right at me,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWho?\u201d I said, thinking she meant someone in the chair by us.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cEddie.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cDorothy, there is no way Eddie can see us here in the dark and this far away,\u201d I said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cOh, yes, he can,\u201d she quickly disagreed with me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A little later she commented, \u201cHe\u2019s pointing at me!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWho?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cEddie.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cNo, there is no way he can see us.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Aunt Dorothy\u2019s comments (and my eye-rolling) continued into the next song.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
That\u2019s when my mom jokingly said, \u201cHe\u2019s winking at me.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Aunt Dorothy argued, \u201cNo, he\u2019s winking at me.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
All three of us ended up laughing, making up comments, and thoroughly enjoying Eddie\u2019s music.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
To end his concert, Eddie sang his 1980 hit \u201cI Love a Rainy Night.\u201d Aunt Dorothy sang along with the familiar song and clapped with the tempo. Eddie sang the lines: \u201cI love to hear the thunder, watch the lightning when it lights up the sky.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Just then, lightning flashed in the sky some distance away! The entire crowd gasped. My mom and I looked at each other and laughed in disbelief.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Eddie\u2019s response to the lightning was, \u201cHow about that light show!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I glanced at Aunt Dorothy, just to see her reaction. She was looking at Eddie, not up at the lightning. I was thinking she hadn\u2019t seen the flash of lightning at all.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In the distance, the lightning continued during Eddie\u2019s song, but no thunder and no rainy night.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
At the end of the song and concert, we folded up our chairs and walked back to the car. I asked Aunt Dorothy, \u201cDid you like Eddie and his concert?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Aunt Dorothy said, \u201cHe sure puts on a great light show.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I had to agree with her on that one.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
My mom and I invited her sister, Dorothy, to the county fair for an outdoor country music concert. Aunt Dorothy loved everything about that genre of music \u2013 her record […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_tec_requires_first_save":true,"_gspb_post_css":"","_EventAllDay":false,"_EventTimezone":"","_EventStartDate":"","_EventEndDate":"","_EventStartDateUTC":"","_EventEndDateUTC":"","_EventShowMap":false,"_EventShowMapLink":false,"_EventURL":"","_EventCost":"","_EventCostDescription":"","_EventCurrencySymbol":"","_EventCurrencyCode":"","_EventCurrencyPosition":"","_EventDateTimeSeparator":"","_EventTimeRangeSeparator":"","_EventOrganizerID":[],"_EventVenueID":[],"_OrganizerEmail":"","_OrganizerPhone":"","_OrganizerWebsite":"","_VenueAddress":"","_VenueCity":"","_VenueCountry":"","_VenueProvince":"","_VenueState":"","_VenueZip":"","_VenuePhone":"","_VenueURL":"","_VenueStateProvince":"","_VenueLat":"","_VenueLng":"","_VenueShowMap":false,"_VenueShowMapLink":false,"_tribe_blocks_recurrence_rules":"","_tribe_blocks_recurrence_description":"","_tribe_blocks_recurrence_exclusions":"","footnotes":""},"essay_type":[46],"essay-category":[],"class_list":["post-19761","essay","type-essay","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","essay_type-features"],"blocksy_meta":[],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sasee.com\/ro\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/essay\/19761","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sasee.com\/ro\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/essay"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sasee.com\/ro\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/essay"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sasee.com\/ro\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sasee.com\/ro\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19761"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sasee.com\/ro\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/essay\/19761\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sasee.com\/ro\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19761"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"essay_type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sasee.com\/ro\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/essay_type?post=19761"},{"taxonomy":"essay-category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sasee.com\/ro\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/essay-category?post=19761"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}