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Six-string seniors
Students prove it's never too late to learn to rock
Wednesday, July 8, 2009
 Click here to enlarge this photo Staff photos by SARA K. TAYLOR
Tom Glisson, left, and Charlesetta Welsh attend guitar lessons at the Waldorf Senior Center once a week.
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Pat Howe hasn't always done what is expected of her.
Following a brain aneurysm, the La Plata resident underwent open skull surgery.
She wasn't expected to live. She did.
"They told me I was going to die," Howe said. "This entire thing turned my life upside down."
Her doctors weren't too sure she'd talk again. She's a chatterbox.
Her memory has been affected, but she's working on it.
She had to switch a doctor's appointment from Tuesday to Thursday because her Tuesdays are now booked with guitar lessons at the Waldorf Senior Center.
"I have to do something where I can sit," said Howe, 63, a fourth-grade teacher at St. Mary's Piscataway School who is on a hiatus from her job.
"I was going to take a class at the college but I thought it might be too stressful."
Howe said her friends aren't too shocked she chose to pick up a guitar.
"They said, ‘You got divorced, went to school and got your teaching degree at 50. You'll be a rock star when you're 65.'"
The guitar classes at the senior center are in their second month, with anywhere from one to five students stopping by.
Taught by Therese Thiedeman, the sessions are for beginners, those who always wanted to learn to play the instrument but never had the opportunity or time.
Now they have both.
"I've always been excited to learn," said Waldorf resident Charlesetta Welsh. "It's never too late. I'm 74 going on 75. I wanted to do something I've never done before and it's fun. I'll keep coming; I'm not going to give up."
Toting a guitar case, Welsh said, "I love it so much, I have this one and bought another one and I don't know how to hit a note but I intend to learn."
Thiedeman said there is a movement in the U.S. called "creative aging" which calls for older adults to engage in the arts.
According to the National Center for Creative Aging's Web site, it is important that older people indulge in some sort of creative expression. The arts prove a powerful way to engage minds and bodies.
Assistant program coordinator at the Waldorf center Julie Brasher said the guitar lessons have been a hit.
"We're never sure what is going to work and what's not," she said. "With the guitar classes, if you never played before, who would think it's something you pick up at 75? It's very inspiring. These people never give up."
Pat Arnold, who teaches watercolor and art classes at the senior center, is among the students plucking away on a recent Tuesday morning, not that she's new to a musical instrument.
She started piano lessons when she was 39. As an instructor, she sees students in her art classes who have never painted before in their lives, but want to try something they've always had an interest in.
"Just don't look at seniors as being old," she said. "We just have more time."
Thiedeman, who plays guitar at the 11:30 a.m. Mass at Our Lady Help of Christians Church, has been playing since she was 12. When she was a teenager, she gave a few lessons here and there to little kids, but that was about all.
Approached by Arnold to teach at the center, Thiedeman agreed and keeps the classes pretty loose.
"There is no curriculum," she said. "It's just for fun. For people who never [played guitar] before, it's easy to give up. These people want to learn and just to challenge themselves."
While there may be no set curriculum — a class might consist of renditions of "Row, Row, Row Your Boat" and "Amazing Grace" — Thiedeman does give homework and encourages students to practice at home.
"We get homework?" Howe asked. "I'm in an apartment … I'll go out on the balcony and tell everyone I'm going to entertain them," she laughed before asking Thiedeman another question.
"Can we do this more than once a week?"
