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We've Got Much to Celebrate the Music, Man with Neil Diamond

6 years ago

The sad news all over the media Monday night, Jan. 22, carried the message that Neil Diamond has been diagnosed with Parkinson's disease, and has been told by his doctors that it's best if he no longer puts his body through the stress of getting up on stage.

This made me think back to April just about three years ago, when my dear wife Karen decided that a long weekend in Washington, D.C., was just what we needed to restore ourselves from the long Central New York winter.

She had two good reasons. We'd never together seen the cherry blossoms bloom on our national mall or Neil Diamond put on a concert.

And so we scored two very nice side seats for his show at the Verizon Center and a standout hotel room walking distance from the arena, the White House, the mall and those flowering trees.

 They took our breath away, those walks around our capital and that show by one of our national treasure musicians.

Cherry BlossomsPleasing splash of pink.

NeilDiamond

Neil stuff for sale at the show. Karen got a T-shirt.

In fact, I don't know which I enjoyed more. Call it a tie.

Fortunately for all, Diamond says he'll still record and stay involved in the music world in other ways.

And fortunately for LPL cardholders, there are plenty of CDs and books connected to his life in our catalog.

During that show in April 2015, I took out my iPhone 6 and captured a video of Diamond's closing one-two salute of Sweet Caroline and Coming to America. Please enjoy the YouTube clip.