Last night I took my husband Jake to Blueberry Hill for his birthday. We were able to see Chuck Berry perform in the Duck Room after trying to get tickets for five or six years. Since Chuck performs only once a month, you have to gp online immediately as soon as sales start to buy tickets. It was worth the wait: Chuck is 87 and still rockin’ and rollin’. I loved his music when I was a teenager and he was wild and free. I loved him yesterday too. This is certainly a tamer Chuck than the guitar legend. We sat front-row-center and could see how management puts a list of songs with keys in huge letters on the floor. He got the key wrong once anyway to the annoyance of Charles Berry, Jr. who performs along with his Dad and sister Ingrid. Right key, wrong key, April 23^rd was Chuck’s 203rd consecutive performance at Blueberry Hill. How cool is that?

A lot of people his age would be resting on their laurels with their feet up in front of the television. Instead he is singing and playing the guitar for over an hour, sweating under the hot stage lights. Even putting one foot out and sliding on the other in a modification of the dance he pioneered – the “Duck Walk.”

That’s why I admire Lori so much. Like Chuck who won’t let the diagnosis of advanced age put him out to pasture, she is living her life to the fullest despite the diagnosis of Parkinson’s.  When she first heard she had the disease, she says, “I felt like I just wanted to sit in a corner and cry until I died.” Then something powerful happened. She realized Parkinson’s would never kill her, so she determined to make the absolute best of her life. And she has. “I can choose to not let this get to me. And, if it does, then I can figure out another way to fight. And another way after that. I can beat this.”