Rose Garden residents revel in musical roots

RITZVILLE - Residents of Rose Garden Estates were treated to root beer floats and country music under blue skies Wednesday, June 16.

Charlie Root of Moses Lake brought his guitar, banjo and a large repertoire of old time country hits - some dating back to the 1800s, such as Stephen Foster's "Oh Susanna."

"They know a lot of the songs I sing," Root said.

This was Root's first visit back to the Rose Garden since February 2020, a regular entertainer for the residents prior to the COVID-19 pandemic.

"I used to come once a month, but this is the first time I have been anyplace since then," Root said.

Appropriately, the first song he played was Gene Autry's "Back in the Saddle Again," recorded in 1939.

Smiling and tapping their feet, residents sang along to several songs, especially when Root played old hymns.

"You're accompanied by a pretty good choir," said resident Ruthie Gust, whose own voice added a beautiful soprano to Root's wide range of tenor and baritone.

Several residents sang along as Root gently sang Marty Robbins' Red River Valley, the woeful lyrics eliciting a brief tear or two.

Mixing it up, Root said he was switching from "Western" music to "Eastern" as he sang a masculine version of Dinah Shore's upbeat "Buttons and Bows," a song about a girl who finds herself out west but misses the high fashion and society of back east.

Root included songs by Jimmie Davis, the two-time governor of Louisiana inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame as well as the Southern Gospel Music Hall of Fame.

"He was still singing at over 100 years of age," Root told his Rose Garden friends.

"I'm going to play one from some new guys. I think they're retired now, but everyone I listen to is gone," Root said as he tuned his guitar for "High Cotton," recorded by Alabama. The group formed in 1969 and had national popularity in the 1980's before playing a farewell tour in 2004 and earning the first-ever Life Time Achievement Award from the Musicians Hall of Fame and Museum in 2019.

Root touched on economic woes with Tennessee Ernie Ford's "Sixteen Tons" about a coal miner who "owes my soul to the company store," before reminding listeners of the real treasures in life with Eddy Arnold's "I Am the Richest Man in the World."

"This is a song about farmers and thanksgiving. I hear there's a farmer or two in Ritzville," Root said before singing out, "I got a humpback mule, a plow and a tater patch; eggs that are gonna hatch someday. I got my Lord above and a good girl to love me; I'm the richest man in the world."

Gathering up empty cups and spoons from the root beer floats after the show, Rose Garden Estates Administrator/Owner Alice Semingson had her own pearl of wisdom to share with the residents.

"We've been through it this past year, and you've all made sacrifices," Semingson said. "But we're on the home stretch now."