|
|
|
The song is fairly simple.
It’s in the key of ‘E’ flat. The melody is simple, yet rich and warm in tone, over a steady left hand rhythm.
The title reads simply ‘Thank You Alice’.
Yet, it says so much and is cherished so completely by the woman it was written for. It describes easily the life of service and learning and the day that was spent back in March celebrating it.
“I was suppose to give her a speech, but instead I wrote this song,” said Alice Paulson’s son Mark who wrote the song for Alice’s birthday party on March 20. “It took about 20 minutes to write. I just came up with a melody that was singable and could communicate ideas and was easy to listen to and I took those ideas and tried to combine them in this song.”
Mark was about five years old when he began playing the piano. After identifying his talent, Alice would sit next to him at the piano while he practiced. And began taking piano lessons herself from Mark’s teacher Rhoda Nelson in Clarkfield back in 1979.
“We are here to thank you for everything you’ve done,” begins the chorus of Alice’s song. “Nobody, but Jesus, could number every one. All that we can offer and all that we can say is said by being here with you today.”
On that day when Alice celebrated her 90th birthday, her song was only one of many gifts as her actual family, her Granite Falls Manor family and her Kilowatt Community Center family gathered around her. After living alone in her home on 10th Ave. for the past 20 odd years, Alice has ceased making the distinction between friends and family.
“To be separated from your immediate family, like I am, I’m more or less alone out here,” says Alice who worked at the Manor for 22 years and has continued to minister there for the past 46 years. “With my activities and because I am well, it blows my mind that I am such an old lady and am able to drive, go to the community center three times a week, and to Dr. Darrell (Carter)’s for swimming, and to a concert tonight, and to practice the piano.”
Alice’s husband Arnold, an agricultural lobbyist, died in 1980. Her son Roger passed away four years later. Her father moved in with her in 1987 at the age of 100 before he died in the manor another four years later. Since then her remaining three children which include David Paulson (Deep Haven, Minn.), Connie Carson (Littleton, Colo.) and Mark (West Orange, N.J.), her grandchildren, great-grandchildren and remaining relatives have spread over the country.
Mark, who works as a performer and piano teacher, admits that the distance can be hard and you can never visit often enough. And now, at age 90, Alice admits that it may soon be time to move out of her house.
But for now, she likes living alone. And she’s too busy anyway with the Golden Grands, her ministry at the manor, delivering ‘Dinner at Your Door’, painting watercolors, making rosettes, socializing, planning cross-country trips to see relatives and playing the piano to begin thinking about some type of care facility.
Nor does she seem too worried by it, she’s still basking in the glory of her one special day back in March.
“The whole day I was so honored,” says Alice. “More than anybody, to have my family come. Anybody can put a person on such a high level. I almost felt like, ‘Who are they talking about?’. We have a great responsibility in a community to be a witness: Where you go, what you do, how you talk and how you treat people. It’s not a goal but a desire to be in that category. For a person to be so well and to be able to get around, I too, have gotten a gift... A gift of life.”
To find out more about Mark Paulson’s music teaching you can go to www.pianocanbefun.com
The song is fairly simple.
It’s in the key of ‘E’ flat. The melody is simple, yet rich and warm in tone, over a steady left hand rhythm.
The title reads simply ‘Thank You Alice’.
Yet, it says so much and is cherished so completely by the woman it was written for. It describes easily the life of service and learning and the day that was spent back in March celebrating it.
“I was suppose to give her a speech, but instead I wrote this song,” said Alice Paulson’s son Mark who wrote the song for Alice’s birthday party on March 20. “It took about 20 minutes to write. I just came up with a melody that was singable and could communicate ideas and was easy to listen to and I took those ideas and tried to combine them in this song.”
Mark was about five years old when he began playing the piano. After identifying his talent, Alice would sit next to him at the piano while he practiced. And began taking piano lessons herself from Mark’s teacher Rhoda Nelson in Clarkfield back in 1979.
“We are here to thank you for everything you’ve done,” begins the chorus of Alice’s song. “Nobody, but Jesus, could number every one. All that we can offer and all that we can say is said by being here with you today.”
On that day when Alice celebrated her 90th birthday, her song was only one of many gifts as her actual family, her Granite Falls Manor family and her Kilowatt Community Center family gathered around her. After living alone in her home on 10th Ave. for the past 20 odd years, Alice has ceased making the distinction between friends and family.
“To be separated from your immediate family, like I am, I’m more or less alone out here,” says Alice who worked at the Manor for 22 years and has continued to minister there for the past 46 years. “With my activities and because I am well, it blows my mind that I am such an old lady and am able to drive, go to the community center three times a week, and to Dr. Darrell (Carter)’s for swimming, and to a concert tonight, and to practice the piano.”
Alice’s husband Arnold, an agricultural lobbyist, died in 1980. Her son Roger passed away four years later. Her father moved in with her in 1987 at the age of 100 before he died in the manor another four years later. Since then her remaining three children which include David Paulson (Deep Haven, Minn.), Connie Carson (Littleton, Colo.) and Mark (West Orange, N.J.), her grandchildren, great-grandchildren and remaining relatives have spread over the country.
Mark, who works as a performer and piano teacher, admits that the distance can be hard and you can never visit often enough. And now, at age 90, Alice admits that it may soon be time to move out of her house.
But for now, she likes living alone. And she’s too busy anyway with the Golden Grands, her ministry at the manor, delivering ‘Dinner at Your Door’, painting watercolors, making rosettes, socializing, planning cross-country trips to see relatives and playing the piano to begin thinking about some type of care facility.
Nor does she seem too worried by it, she’s still basking in the glory of her one special day back in March.
“The whole day I was so honored,” says Alice. “More than anybody, to have my family come. Anybody can put a person on such a high level. I almost felt like, ‘Who are they talking about?’. We have a great responsibility in a community to be a witness: Where you go, what you do, how you talk and how you treat people. It’s not a goal but a desire to be in that category. For a person to be so well and to be able to get around, I too, have gotten a gift... A gift of life.”
To find out more about Mark Paulson’s music teaching you can go to www.pianocanbefun.com
