On 15 December 2017, I performed “Showtune Favorites,” my very first one-hour trumpet show at my very first retirement community, then called SHAG Lynnwood Center, now Destinations Lynnwood. Rate Tate, a resident, scheduled my first performance anywhere. It was in their Community Room.

On 22 May 2026, eight-and a-half years later and only three days before Memorial Day, I returned to perform “I Stand for the Flag,” comprised of 24 patriotic marches, songs, and bugle calls. I used all five horns—trumpet, pocket trumpet, cornet, flugelhorn, and bugle—and wore my VFW uniform.

It was Happy Hour on a Friday afternoon, outdoors, where the audience sat at tables under umbrellas on a gorgeous day and ate snacks and drank delicious drinks. They sang, they clapped in rhythm, they marched in place, they laughed. I smiled again and again and played till we finished with the Pledge of Allegiance and “The Star-Spangled Banner,” standing and singing with hands over hearts.

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