Meeting Vice President Biden

It’s not every day that the Vice President of the United States stands less than a foot away from you, gives you a disarmingly warm hello and a very firm handshake! Thanks to a dear friend, Bernard L. Jones, that’s exactly what I experienced yesterday.

Bernard, a Democratic State delegate from Colrain and Vietnam combat veteran, had invited me to a special reception in Boston for Vice President Joe Biden. Together with several hundred other people on the roof deck of Fenway Park, I listened to the Vice President speak about the issues confronting this new administration. He described his visits to hard-hit industrial communities throughout the United States and the economic necessity for health care reform. His speech was sober, personal, and finally...uplifting. Not in an impractical or hyperbolic way. His optimism was authentic, real.

I was hoping to hand him a DVD of my piano duets with the women of Riverbrook Residence. Through the medium of music, women with disabilities are exemplifying—emotionally, cognitively and socially—the spirit of change he and the new administration stand for. I knew that the Vice President would find this work meaningful and inspiring—just as Governor Deval Patrick had the week before!

As I learned from a Secret Service agent, however, no one is permitted to hand the Vice President anything, except perhaps a business card. So I gave my packet of materials to another friend, Michael Wilcox, through whose connections we hope to deliver it to the Vice President.

My aspiration is for the Riverbrook women to be recognized at a national level. Specifically, I imagine them performing in the First Lady’s new White House Music Series. They will help make the White House the “People’s House”—as First Lady Michelle Obama is seeking to do.

Through their music, these women, who in other circumstances may have been relegated to the fringes of society, are inspiring people throughout Massachusetts. They demonstrate why the optimism Vice President Biden expressed last night is justified—they prove that beauty, creativity and freedom are our nature, inherent to us all and unfettered by any limitation!

Watch this YouTube video of a performance by the women of Riverbrook Residence.