Barbershop quartet gives couple a melodic message  from the heart

Middletown duo surprised by serenade  from Razor’s Edge on Valentine’s Day

Alan Green (from left), Les Dornon, Tom Bruggeman and Mike Havey, members of The Razor’s Edge barbershop quartet, sing for Jack and Katie Cook on Valentines Day on Monday at their home in Middletown. The Cooks will celebrate their 69th wedding anniversary in May.

Staff photo by Nick Graham Alan Green (from left), Les Dornon, Tom Bruggeman and Mike Havey, members of The Razor’s Edge barbershop quartet, sing for Jack and Katie Cook on Valentines Day on Monday at their home in Middletown. The Cooks will celebrate their 69th wedding anniversary in May.

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By Rick McCrabb, Columnist 12:48 AM Tuesday, February 15, 2011

MIDDLETOWN — When Jack and Katie Cook celebrated their 40th wedding anniversary, their three daughters gave them a hot air balloon ride.

Now — nearly 29 years later — and fittingly on Valentine’s Day, the Cooks, this time, were swept away simply by hot air.

The Middletown couple were surprised Monday when a Razor’s Edge Barbershop Chorus performed two love songs, and presented them a red rose and a box of chocolates.

It was a gift from their daughter, Sharon Metz, who’s caring for them, and their granddaughter, who lives in Georgia. When Metz read in the newspaper about the $40 singing valentines, a fundraiser for the Middletown organization, she said: “That’s the ticket.”

The quartet of Tom Bruggeman, Les Dornon, Alan Green and Mike Havey, performed one of their Valentine’s Day standards, “Heart of my Heart,” then, since the Cooks live at home, they sang, “Love at Home.”

Bruggeman called the song “very fitting for the occasion.”

During the performance, Jack, 88, in the early stages of dementia, and his wife, who recently was declared legally blind because of her macular degeneration, linked arms.

Till death do we part.

I asked them the secret to a lengthy marriage. He answered first. “Sticking together.”

The Middletown natives met when he was a paperboy, and she was on his route. They were married in Richmond, Ind., on May 2, 1942. He was 20; she was almost 17.

He served two tours in the Navy for four years during World War II and a few months during the Korean conflict. By that time, he was married, had built a home and had two children.

“I needed him here,” Katie said of her husband, who worked for 40 years in the research department at Armco.

The conversation jogged Katie’s memory. She said when they were about to lift off for their anniversary balloon ride, they were handed a tape recorder and told to push the play button during the flight.

It was a Kenny Rogers tape and it was cued to play, “Through the Years.” Instead, either by accident or as a joke, the recorder played “Blaze of Glory.”

Thankfully, the quartet didn’t know that one.

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