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Evergreen at Stone Mountain |
One of the nicer things about travelling with my
wife to her annual AADA Leadership Conference is that the venue changes yearly. This year we flew into Atlanta and then made the
thirty-mile drive to a lovely resort called Stone Mountain: a family retreat
with hiking and biking trails and two nice to very nice Marriott hotels.
Because our meeting was booked to capacity and we
were sharing space with another group of 500+, we got to stay at both of them.
One of the regular events is an awards event
honoring relatively new and active members of the Alliance to the American
Dental Association with the Beulah K. Spencer Award. Beulah was a dental spouse who followed
Thelma Neff and my mother as a National President of what is now called the
Alliance.
This year as part of the ceremony we were treated to
a presentation by the DeKalb School of the Arts, a prestigious 8-12 independent
high school dedicated to providing close to 300 students an opportunity to grow
in their chosen arts endeavor. Their
program was varied in song and dance but not in energy and the audience was
carried along as the program developed.
Somewhere close to the finale I heard a familiar strain that caused me
to literally scratch my head. They came
up with the song, “He Ain’t Heavy, He’s My Brother.”

Turns out I was wrong in my timeline.

As did several other subsequent releases. But most likely the reason the song attracted
attention to this group is that it was considered the featured song of one of
the best 12 stars of American Idol in
the show’s fourth season.
Whatever, The DSA presentation was not only
enjoyable, it accomplished what so many songs do for an audience; it reminded
us of pleasant past memories and, at least for me, got my mind working and
stimulated me to do some interesting research.
In my next post I intend to explain why the recent
purchase of a GPS seemed to have a special meaning in my life.
Glad to read about your stimulating trip to the AADA conference and how you are now in full research mode. I posted the MOAA presentation on my blog. Thanks again. Sonia
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