Veterans living in memory care units in Pittsburgh are getting treated to karaoke.
Volunteers noticed the impact the music is having on them right away.
The volunteers are part of a local non-profit called Herd of Turtles. They sing, dance, and pull out all the stops to make karaoke events a party every time.
They do it in honor and memory of Dr. Dave Johnson.
“One day he said to me, ‘hey, I wanna learn how to sing,’” said Dave’s daughter-in-law, Anissa Johnson.
So she made good on the request of the 82-year-old who had recently been diagnosed with dementia due to Alzheimer’s.
“He had the tambourine on one hand, the microphone on the other, and he just bellowed out some of his favorites,” Anissa said.
Anything from Elvis and Johnny Cash.
“It just brought out everything that I think he was holding inside of him,” said Paula Johnson, Dave’s wife. “Because he couldn’t express himself very well verbally, but to sing a song, he just let it go.”
It offered glimpses of the man Paula married 53 years earlier. The man who served as a dentist in the Navy and was a Hall of Fame wrestler at Pitt.
The disease progressed quickly and a few short months after he started his singing lessons, Dave passed away.
But his family and his vocal coach saw the impact the music had on him, and they wanted others living with memory diagnoses to experience it too. So they created the non-profit, Herd of Turtles, to spread the joy of music. It is named after a phrase Dave always said, never losing his sense of humor.
“Anytime he was about to leave a room, before he got up, he’d say, ‘I am off, like a herd of turtles.’ He was sort of poking fun of himself for being slow,” Anissa said.
“They might have a hard time telling you what their name is, but they know how to sing the Star-Spangled Banner front to back and they’re smiling,” said Melody Molinaro, president of Herd of Turtles and Dave’s vocal coach.
During a recent karaoke session that Channel 11 was invited to, we asked veteran Danny Schlegal what music means to him.
“To me it’s the reason for why my life exists,” he told us. “When I was in the army in Vietnam, I would sing. Me and my buddies would sing.”
“I definitely feel Dave’s presence (at Herd of Turtles events) because he would just be overjoyed,” Paula said.
Herd of Turtles has several sing-alongs planned for the fall. For more information visit https://www.herdofturtlespgh.com/
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