91-Year-Old Ukulele Player Teaches Lively Class on Art of Flea-Scratching

Remember when the ukulele was popular?

It didn’t fade away completely, says Jack Toon, 91, who teaches a weekly ukulele class that is so much fun it’s attended by people who don’t even want to learn how to play.

Spectators stand by his open classroom door, listening and singing along while upward of 36 ukulele players strum old-time favorites like “Let Me Call You Sweetheart.” Toon says his repertoire includes 150 songs that he plays, sings and teaches to the class.

“Gosh, oh mighty, it’s a lot of fun,” said Toon, who taught himself 75 years ago and now has 36 students at the class in the Oasis Senior Citizens Center in Newport Beach.

“Playing the ukulele slowed a bit in recent years, but we’re trying to bring it back. It’s really easy to play.”

Toon started the class seven years ago and said it caught on in a hurry, especially among women, who now constitute a large majority of his students. “I suppose that’s because they live longer than men,” he said.

Besides learning to play the instrument, the class puts on 45-minute shows for other senior citizens. “It’s a fun instrument, and we do a lot of good with rest homes and convalescent hospitals,” Toon said. “When we get those people singing with us, we know we’re reaching them.”

Besides beginners, Toon says he has some strummers in his class who are world-class players, such as Travis Harrelson, who plays classical music on the ukulele. “It’s amazing to me how much talent there is in the class,” Toon said. “Some were professional musicians.”

Toon noted that once someone joins the class they usually stay on for the fun of it.

And besides seniors, “youngsters sometimes want to join the class,” Toon said. “We once let a 40-year-old in the class, and during the summer an 18-year-old boy wanted to take lessons.”

“The ukulele players really have the most fun,” said center supervisor Judy O’Shaughnessy, who notes that the center has hula dancers who perform with the ukulele class at other centers.

And when Toon, a world traveler, takes trips, he packs his ukulele, especially on visits to Tahiti with wife Joan, 73. “She isn’t musically inclined, but she’s a wonderful wife,” he said.

In researching the ukulele, Toon found that the name was given 200 years ago in Hawaii “because strumming the ukulele reminded them of a dog scratching fleas with the same up and down motion used to strum the ukulele.” Ukulele, he said, basically means scratching fleas.

And with a twinkle in his eye, Toon noted that “the class calls me their fearless leader.”

Asked why, he replied, “What have I to fear?”

Leola M. Gorow, 75, of Laguna Hills talks proudly when she states, “I’m a registered Girl Scout.” And, in fact, she still takes hikes with her husband, Frank Gorow, and Girl Scout pals like Patty Cochran, 73, of Yorba Linda.

With Girl Scouts celebrating their 75th birthday this year, Leola put together a slide program and pictures of scouting from 1922 to 1987 that she loans to Girl Scout troops throughout Orange County. “The first pictures I took were with a little Brownie box camera I took to camp in 1923,” Leola Gorow said.

She also sends along old uniforms, one she wore in 1922 when she joined scouting, as well as ones her daughter wore.

“I’ve lived by the Girl Scout laws and promise and think it makes a difference in a child’s life,” she said, “even though they don’t think of it at the time.”

Marie Walden, 80, of Costa Mesa is celebrating her 65th continuous year as a Girl Scout.

James, 71, had a bachelor party and Lillie, 68, was the center of attention at a wedding shower as they prepared for their Valentine’s Day marriage at the Church of the Northside in La Habra. Everyone had a good time at the wedding. The 300-name guest list included their 11 children, 44 grandchildren and 27 great-grandchildren.

Actually, James and Lillie Rain, of La Habra decided to renew the vows they said on Feb. 17, 1937, as a way of celebrating their 50th wedding anniversary.

It also took the place of the formal wedding they never had. “We thought we were smart and ran away to get married,” Lillie said. “It turned out to be good judgment on our part. I married a wonderful man.”