Music And Mirth Make Grate Show

Mommies and Daddies singing in the kitchen

Babies laughing, singing in the kitchen

All you people singing in the kitchen

Banging on pots and pans.

-The Kitchen Graters theme song

Ruth Slouka plays the bum, and her husband, Ed, dances with the dummy in the blue satin dress.

Then Ed leaves the dummy, Dolly, on a chair, and Ruth moves in for a few smooches.

And if you think that’s something, you should see the camel.

But we’re getting ahead of our story.

Ruth - well into her 70s - heads up the Kitchen Graters band. The group of mostly septuagenarians believes that music is good, laughter is better and loving laughter is the best medicine of all.

The Kitchen Graters performed this week for residents at the Franklin Hills Nursing Center, on the North Side. Emcee Ron Severson, known nationally as the Human Echo, is the only band member who’s not a Spokane Valley resident. Dot Williams, Jennie Winch, Hazel Lauritzen and Ed and Yolande Maxwell made up the rest of Thursday’s group.

These people are not shy. The women specialize in big hats and the men in outfits that would bring stares on the golf course.

Ruth is dressed as the Wonder Bread Girl, complete with fringed, painted cowboy boots and a Dutch-boy hat with braids. Off stage, she is quiet, almost laconic. On the way home from the show, she tells with quiet amusement about the former member, “a big lumberjack kind of guy,” she persuaded to wear a grass skirt.

“The first time he came out, he lost his grass skirt. He had shorts on. But that went over really big,” she said. The gag was too good to drop, so it went into the show.

Setting up for a Kitchen Graters show involves much unpacking of props and handing around of cue cards. It’s also a good time for these friends to check on each other’s health, sometimes no minor matter in this age group. An earlier incarnation of the band faded after three members died.

“I love this band. And I love these people,” Lauritzen said. “Are you listening, Ed? And I play a teapot.”

The Kitchen Graters roll out 45 minutes of songs, skits and jokes. Their instruments range from Ruth’s musical saw, to Ed’s gut bucket - a polyurethane and plastic version of a one-string bass, a kazoo, the teapot, a piano, an accordion and a boombox. The songs come from Lawrence Welk’s heyday and earlier. The Darktown Strutters Ball. I’m Looking Over a 4-Leaf Clover. Old Grey Bonnet.

Members of the audience clearly remember these songs, unfamiliar to younger ears.

Severson’s an old hand at the microphone. He keeps the show moving. The only time he breaks character is to tell the audience about the high-tech fine-tuning his brand new pacemaker just got.

Then, along comes the camel. Ruth is the front, Ed is behind. Led by Lauritzen in a sheik costume, they sashay. They do the Hoky-Poky. And they make it look easy.

Maybe that happens when you’ve been married for 44 years.

What matters more to Ruth and Ed, making music or making people laugh?

Making people laugh, they agree.

All you people singing in the kitchen Banging on pots and pans.

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Photo

MEMO: Saturday’s People is a regular Valley Voice feature profiling remarkable individuals in the Valley. If you know someone who would be a good profile subject, please call editor Mike Schmeltzer at 927-2170.

This sidebar appeared with the story: NEXT PERFORMANCE The Kitchen Graters’ next show in the Valley will start at noon on Jan. 19 at Centennial Middle School. Call Sue Sharpe of the Seniors Lunch Program at 922-5482.