There's a little red and white windmill in the front yard, and I look around half expecting to see Quixote and Sancho somewhere, off on another adventure. But there is only the windmill.

Later, whenever I think about this day, I'll always picture that windmill in my mind and be reminded of the Van de Kamp's Bakery logo. I guess it's because the windmill formed my first impression of the home.

I'm standing on the front porch, my guitar slung over my shoulder, and I ring the doorbell. I don't know anyone here, and I feel somewhat apprehensive. I'm here because a woman named Rose, the program director of the Home, called and asked me if I'd come. She was at the benefit I played three months ago, and she called the next day. I told her I was booked solid for the next few weeks, but she said that's all right, come whenever you can. They'd be so delighted, she said.

After a minute the door opens. Rose greets me with a smile. "Come in, come in," she says warmly, and I return the smile and go in, not quite knowing what to expect. I've never been in a place like this before. "We're all ready and waiting," she says briskly as she closes the door.

She leads me through the foyer where there's a reception desk behind a glass panel; I feel like I'm in a doctor's office. We walk down a long hallway, and as we pass room after room I can't help but notice the stale smell on the air. The doors are all open and some of the rooms are vacant, but most are occupied, and I get my first glimpse of the people who live here. There's a single bed in each of the small rooms, and I see a man here, a woman there. Some of them are sick, but mostly they're just old.

Just old...

We come to what Rose calls the "Social Room," and I can hear someone playing a piano. And later, when I think about it, I'll remember that piano, too. The piano and that windmill. Red and white. Van de Kamp's and tinkling keys.

"Ladies and gentlemen," Rose begins as we enter the room, and as she introduces me the woman who had been playing the piano smiles, then gets up and takes a seat with the others. I find out later that she's 79 years old. She's been playing piano for 70 years.

My audience, some 40 people in all, is seated in folding chairs around the room. Three are in wheelchairs, and one woman is standing off to the side; she's 76 and wearing a kind of Flapper dress and beads. Dark red lipstick, and a lot of rouge. Some of them are smiling, others just waiting. Some are just sitting, hands folded in their laps, a distant look in their eyes.

I look around and suddenly I begin to feel that this is all a dream...

The room itself, the very air I'm breathing, seems old, and strange. Strange; and I realize that this isn't a Home at all. It's a Time Machine; I've been transported to another time, another world, and it isn't 1975 anymore. It's 1942 and 1918; 1896 and 1929. Two or three wars, a Depression, a turn of a century, telephones and talking pictures. Clara Bow and Al Jolson. Al Capone and Hoover Dam. The Grapes of Wrath and "You ain't heard nothin' yet."

The room is full of old photographs, hanging on the walls and propped up on the piano. Faded black and whites and hazy, gold-tinted ovals; some with frames, some without. Husbands and lovers, soldiers and sweethearts; wives, sons, daughters and dogs...

It doesn't seem real somehow.

For the next hour I sing for them, new songs and old. Mostly old. Five Foot Two and If You Knew Susie, Hey Daddy and Sentimental Journey and After You've Gone. Any requests, please. Sure, I know that one. Sing a few bars and we'll try it. The gal in the Flapper dress is dancing and some of the others are singing along. My Blue Heaven.

Now I'm finished and there's a polite round of applause and I look at their faces... They're not happy, not sad. They're quiet. Wistful. And there are tears; not sad, but bittersweet. And as I thank them for having me I swallow and there's a knot in my throat. I'm glad I don't have to sing anymore today. And I realize something else-- they haven't been listening to me at all. They've been listening to their memories.

A woman shuffles toward me. She's staring at me and she doesn't say a word. She reaches out and touches my arm, then my cheek, my hair... I'm startled, and I glance over at Rose. "It's all right," she whispers, "Sometimes they like to touch..."

Rose walks me to the door and thanks me graciously. She asks me to please come back again soon. "They need it so," she says.

Yes...

I walk past the little red and white windmill, and I look around again. Somehow I get the feeling that perhaps Quixote and Sancho are here, after all. In hiding, perhaps, but here. Somewhere.

I take the guitar from my shoulder and I get in the car. I look over at the windmill. Van de Kamp's. And I go home.