Elders' Wisdom, Children's Song
Zimmerman Today
by Carol Bray
On Thursday, March 18th, Westwood Elementary School hosted a community celebration featuring the Westwood Elementary 4th Grade Students with Larry Long and four elders who had several weeks earlier told their life stories to the students.
Long started the Elder’ Wisdom, Children’s Song program with the belief that people are never too old or too young to learn tolerance and understanding.
Long’s life’s work is celebrating American stories and heroes. Larry has won many awards including the Pope John XXIII Award, Bush Artists Fellowship, etc.
The four honored elders were Mr. Ernie Goldenman, Mrs. Debra Lehmkuhl, Mr. Danny Chen and myself, Carol Bray. Principal Gary Bachmann welcomed the attendees and after recognizing the many people that had made this event possible, each honoree’s life’s story was presented by 4th graders. After each elder’s biography was read by the students, Larry Long’s composed song to honor each elder was sung. The students and community joined Long in the singing of the songs. The songs touched your heart, were inspirational, funny, revealing and "pleasant to the ear".
As one of the elders, I was honored and humbled to be one of the four elders. The evening’s stories and songs had many interesting, a few funny, a couple of sad, and a number of emotional moments. At one time, I had to wipe a few tears away because Debra’s Lehmkuhl’s song just touched my heart so.
The experience’s goal was to strengthen and enrich the spirit of the Zimmerman community by using music and art to honor the dignity, hard work, and resiliency of people within the Zimmerman community and beyond. As far as I’m concerned, the experience surpassed that goal.
Article reprinted here by permission. You can download a PDF of the article from Zimmerman Today here.