Geritol Sound Replaces Champagne Music

The Geritol Philharmonic Orchestra is one musical group that you’re not likely to catch on MTV, which seems appropriate, considering that most of its members grew up in the pre-television era.

“We chose the name facetiously, but it’s also appropriate because everyone in the group is well over the hill,” chuckled Carol Morris, director of the senior citizens’ musical group that has been performing throughout San Diego for nearly six years.

The group includes more than 40 musicians, most of whom range in age from their late 60s to their mid 80s.

The oldest member is 89-year-old Harry Shenuk, who plays the mandolin, while the “youngster” of the group is a 45-year-old piano player. “She’s underage, but she has gray hair and looks older, so it works out all right,” Morris said.

The orchestra, which won a 1980 citywide senior-citizen talent show, practices every Saturday and generally performs several concerts per month, often at hospitals and nursing homes.

“Probably the biggest thrill we get is watching how some of the shut-ins at convalescent homes come to life when we perform,” said Jack Reynolds, the group’s sound engineer.

“They really go wild when we start playing songs from the ‘40s and ‘50s. Some of them dance, and the ones who can’t usually clap or sing along. Once, a man in a wheelchair kept time by going around in a circle.”

“Sometimes, we’ll play for people who are practically comatose,” Morris added. “Every once in a while you’ll notice a finger or toe tapping, and you’ll know you’re reaching them. It’s very gratifying to get a response like that.”

The group’s performances also include some comedy and variety acts, including Reynolds’ and Morris’ impersonation of Archie and Edith Bunker singing “Those Were the Days.”

“We generally stick to the oldies but goodies,” Morris said.

“That sort of describes our members, too.”

Jury of His Adversaries

As a county supervisor, Mayor Roger Hedgecock was a frequent critic of the rising public costs involved in providing legal defense services for the poor.

Hedgecock argued, for example, that $330 was sufficient payment for a lawyer assigned to defend an indigent person charged with a felony.

Such attitudes hardly made Hedgecock a favorite of the lawyers who, under contract with the county, defend the indigent.

So, at last week’s annual Defender Dinner, some lawyers clearly relished the opportunity to grill Hedgecock about whether his own experience as a criminal defendant had altered his budget-conscious opinions.

If the lawyers were expecting an about face, they were disappointed, because Hedgecock, saying that “all rights have a price tag,” stressed that his recent Superior Court trial on felony conspiracy and perjury charges had not changed his skepticism toward government-provided legal services for the poor. An indigent defendant’s constitutional right to legal defense services “does not . . . have an unlimited call on the treasury,” the mayor added.

Still, would he want to be defended by a lawyer being paid only $330? Hedgecock was asked. (The assumption, apparently, is that you get what you pay for, in lawyers as in other things.)

“Why didn’t you talk to me last week?” quipped Hedgecock, who has complained bitterly about his legal costs. The mayor, whose first trial ended in a mistrial caused by a hung jury, recently hired Las Vegas lawyer Oscar Goodman to handle his retrial, reportedly at a “bargain” price of $25,000.

When pressed for a serious answer to the question of whether he would be willing to stake his legal and political future on a public defender being paid only $330, Hedgecock hedged, saying, “My case . . . is a totally unique situation.”

“That’s what all my clients say,” one lawyer shot back, prompting laughter from his colleagues.

Boy, Rodney Dangerfield gets more respect than that!

Head for the Cross

The Rev. Louis Copestake is editor of the Southern Cross, the official weekly newspaper of the Roman Catholic Diocese of San Diego. And like his secular counterparts, he knows the importance of hustling subscriptions.

So Copestake goes from parish to parish, replacing the more typical Sunday sermon with his Southern Cross pitch. His spiel includes the fact that not only is the weekly newspaper important reading for all Catholics but also, in a time-conscious society, the paper can be read quickly--in an hour or less every week.

“I don’t want you to subscribe to this and put it on your coffee table,” he tells the congregations. “If you do that, it won’t get read. Put it where it’s sure to be read. Put it in your bathroom.”

And, sure enough, a subscriber recently sent Copestake a picture of his bathroom, complete with the Southern Cross within arm’s reach. Talk about the flush of success!