Getting Back To Who He Was

Dan Barry: HOLLIDAYSBURG, Pa.

Down halls where cigarette smoke perfumes the air and shuffling slippers give the floors an extra buff, there resounds an intercom announcement: Head to the dining room for the American Idol program! Come support your friends!

Those who answer the call find the dining room transformed, with a night-blue curtain concealing the buffet table, the coffee canisters and the sign saying, "Remember Your Napkin." No trace of the shepherd's pie served for lunch two hours before, or of the resident who accidentally dropped his food tray and walked out red-faced, the tap, tap, tap of his cane marking a slow exit he so clearly wished was quicker.

"From Hollywood, California," calls out the master of ceremonies, encouraging the few dozen in the audience to imagine they are someplace not here, the Hollidaysburg Veterans Home, in the undulating Allegheny Mountains. They applaud the thought, the old and the not-so-old, the formerly homeless and the never homeless, the heavily medicated, the struggling, veterans all.