When I watch the above video, it brings back lots of fond memories -- among them, how I must have talked my folks into taking me to see Mary Poppins at least one more (if not two more) times after I saw it the first time -- with them being used to this after seeing how I responded to the It's A Small World ride at the 1964 World's Fair that was held in Queens, New York (which I must have ridden at least four or five times after my initial trip).
When I watch the video below, it takes me back to when I played a duet on the church organ (between the end of Youth Fellowship and the beginning of choir practice) with my then-boyfriend's friend, Rick.
He did that guitar part on the keyboard, and I played the chimes.
I hate to brag, but we were good!!!
You see, during his 43 years in our dimension of life, he had always had special needs to one degree or another.
By the time I met him (around the turn of the century when he and his folks started attending our church), his special needs had left him to where he could still walk with assistance but no longer spoke more than one-word sentences with one of his favorite words to say being, "Biiiiiiiiiiiiite!" which showed that he was a fellow foodie.
You should have seen his face when he ate a favorite food. He looked as if he were already in Heaven. His expressive, dark-brown eyes said it all.
Carol (his mom) told me that there had been a time when Scotty talked in sentences and could sing as well. He enjoyed singing the soundtrack from Mary Poppins with his favorite selection being Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious.
Right around that time, he had also developed selective hearing -- that is, there didn't seem to be any actual nerve damage to his ears, but he only seemed to hear what he wanted to hear with one of those things being music.
He especially seemed to respond to the chimes on our church organ, so, one Sunday after church, I played some Mary Poppins songs for him on the church organ, making sure to use the chime keyboard as well.
According to Carol, she saw at least some response from him when I did this.
Scotty would eventually get to the place where he was no longer able to walk but, instead, used a wheelchair--a far cry from some long-ago day related to me by Carol where he actually managed to climb on the roof of their home back when he was knee-high to a grasshopper. He also no longer spoke even in one-word sentences, though he did still make sounds at times.
Mostly, though, he spoke with his expressions -- and he still enjoyed food and other parts of his life.
In 2013, I became homeless for awhile and ended up spending a little over three months of this period living in with Bob, Carol, Scotty, and their two cats (actually, the only officially had ONE cat, but this yellow stray finally convinced them that they had TWO cats).
I also went to visit him in respite care at a local nursing home (ManorCare -- the same one where I would also end up spending a month right before I got my apartment) while Carol and Bob were away on an Alaskan cruise and played the piano for him. He loved it, and so did I.
One of the many memories I have of my time living with Scotty and his family was listening to him sleep at night. He had this adorable way or snoring, and, if I had to use the bathroom or wanted to sneak a wee-hours snack, I would hear him making his special melody that sounded like the sigh of an angel with a little squeak-toy sound punctuating the end of each individual snore.
Carol told me that another thing he still seemed to notice after his hearing became selective was train whistles.
I caught the bus from Muncie to Anderson on Easter Sunday and decided to walk out to my motel from the downtown bus station, stopping at various places along the way.
One of the places where I stopped was at Bob, Carol, and Scotty's place -- and I was escorted there by a special angel named Mary C. who had seen me walking and was worried about me. I guess that a 62 year old lady using a rollator (rolling walker) doesn't look like somebody who'd be walking along Columbus Avenue for her health and/or pleasure.
Actually, I was -- though I was also walking because the city buses weren't running, the price of a taxi ride from Downtown Anderson to my motel would cost $8 that I needed to cover other expenses, and my minivan won't run again without repairs that I can't afford to make at this time (the latter meaning that the only way I could stop at various places where I wanted to stop along the way was to either find one or more drivers who could drop me off here and there or else hoof it).
Mary ended up not only accompanying me from around the former site of Nicholson File all the way to their front door but, also, hanging onto me almost the entire time to keep me from realizing her worst fears that I was going to lose my balance and have a fatal fall.
When we got there, nobody answered the door, and she asked me what I'd planned on doing if nobody came to the door.
I finally convinced her that I would be fine.
It turned out that nobody answered the door -- and nobody showed up as if just returning from church, so I decided that they had probably all gone to visit one of Scotty's sisters in the Shelbyville area and went on to my next destination (which was to go where my minivan was now parked) so that I could sit in it as well as reassure the property owner that I would be moving it elsewhere a.s.a.p.
From there, I went on to Yip's Chopstick House with plans to have a fortune cookie, an almond cookie, and a pot of hot tea (which could be worked into my budget). However, Sam (one of the owners of this Mom & Pop place that had been a long-time favorite eatery) wouldn't let me get away with that and gave me more food than I could eat from the Sunday buffet. She wouldn't even let me pay for what I'd actually ordered!
After eating at Yip's and getting over to where JaySue crosses E. 53rd Street, I decided to accept a ride the rest of the way to my motel from an angel named Diane S.
But all of what I'm telling you is another story.
Getting back to Scotty, I was finally able to reach somebody at their house a couple of days later and learned that Scotty had been in the hospital and that they had been picking him up on Easter Sunday to bring him home. He was still (according to Bob) very weak but he had been in Intensive Care and had just gotten out of there and was brought home instead of going to a regular room as planned.
During his time at home, he rallied some -- becoming more like his old self when it came to food, but it turned out not to have been enough.
He had an infection that caused his skin to break out in blisters all over so that being touched became painful for him, so he had to be returned to the hospital in hopes of both making him more comfortable and fighting the infection.
He ended up passing away the morning of April 22 -- just a week and a day after his 43rd birthday.
Today is Tuesday, April 28, and I'm finishing this entry and linking it to a special page I've made for Scotty in my Empowerment blog.
However, this won't be the last time that I write about Scotty, as there's so much more to share about this precious manchild who made the world a better place just by being in it.
The final video in this entry is a tribute to Scotty, both because he chose to keep hearing the trains go whistling by and, also, because this song is about an end of an era. Even though it's a New Beginning, the passing of one from this earthly life is, in its own way, the end of an era, and Scotty will be very much both missed and fondly remembered here.
There will come a time when trains might be no more -- but there will never be a time when Scotty is no more, because he's simply moved on to a Better Place where life is always Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious!!!
