Young@Heart, Faith

For more than two decades, the senior citizens’ chorus Young@Heart has toured the U.S. and Europe with an unusual act. The Northampton, Mass., group belts out rock classics such as “I Wanna Be Sedated,” “Stayin’ Alive,” “Stairway to Heaven,” and other songs not typically associated with a singing group whose youngest member is 73. Now they are subjects of a namesake documentary that is set to open nationally this month. “People come up to me after shows,” said member Jan St. Laurence, 80, “and say, ‘I’m not afraid to grow older.’”

Faith is a 5-year-old chow mix who was born with a stump of a right paw and a crippled front left leg that had to be removed. But she has been getting around fine ever since her owner, Jude Stringfellow of Oklahoma, taught her to walk on her two hind legs. Now Faith is helping spread the message that “disabilities” need not be disabling. Stringfellow and Faith have appeared on Oprah as well as on Japanese and Korean TV, and they will soon head to Istanbul for an appearance there. “I want people to understand that you can be imperfect physically,” said Stringfellow, “and still be perfect through your spirit.”

Buddies Jeff Deck and Benjamin Herson decided to drive across country together and soon ended up on an unusual crusade: correcting the bad spelling and grammar they kept encountering on signs along the way. Among other editing triumphs, they have persuaded a miniature-golf-course owner in Galveston, Texas, to change the lettering on a structure from “Davy Jones Locker” to “Davy Jones’s Locker.” A posting in Albuquerque that once read “No Smoking Are Dogs Allowed,” now has an “Or” where the “Are” was. For the most part, Deck said, people have been receptive. “There’s been no manhandling or fisticuffs,” Deck said, “at least not yet.”

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