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Glee! The Retirees' Talent Show

The New York Times, 10/18/09

Abstract:

Inocencio Gonzalez caressed his guitar and strummed an old bolero. Eyes closed, he sang about living, loving and dying. Within minutes, three other singers sidled up and leaned close.

“If my last breath is not for you,” they sang, “then what is it for?”

His pickup singers drifted off. Not that they were indifferent, but they were needed elsewhere at the James Monroe Senior Center in the Bronx, which occupies a warren of cinder-block rooms in a housing project in Soundview. They do the usual things: play bingo, dominos or cards; go for power walks; or relax with yoga. But every Friday this year, they have put on talent shows, encouraging one another to share songs, poems and jokes.

Presiding over this is Noel Flores, a retired schoolteacher who takes a bus to the center each day from Washington Heights. On Fridays, he arrives ready to round up and encourage the day’s participants, some more prepared than others.

“There are people here who have a lot of talent,” he said. “But you have to stimulate them to reveal those hidden talents. I may not be in a school anymore, but I’m still a teacher. People say they’re too old to learn, but you learn until you die. And then you learn to die.”

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