• CHRISTINA BURKE - Victoria Advocate
• Originally published May 20, 2008 at 9:07 a.m., updated May 20, 2008 at 9:07 a.m.

They met in 1971 at a dance. In her hot pink pants, she was peeved that he danced with the other girls at the table first.

“He told me he was saving the best for last. We danced, and that was the end of that,” says Joann Hulin of Victoria. “It’s been a good marriage for both of us.

“He’s my life. Aren’t you, babe?” she asks him.

“Yeah,” replies her husband of 35 years, J.P. Hulin.

She serves him pie, the sugar-free variety, knowing he shouldn’t eat the birthday cake decorated with the classic image of a red-and white striped barbershop pole. She then gets him ready for his 82nd birthday party at AlzCare, a care center for Alzheimer’s patients where he lives.

The Victoria Chorus warms up outside, a special performance in honor of J.P.’s birthday. Three of the men stand out from the rest, wearing shrimp-colored shirts with their names and the words “4City4” embroidered across their hearts.

When J.P. is wheeled out to the dining room, he, too, is wearing the same shirt. It fits him loosely.

“We really miss the bass we had for 50 years,” says Victoria’s Ken Woodring, one of the four members of 4City4 and J.P.’s best friend. J.P. was a successful businessman who loved music and dancing, Woodring says.

“We would go to almost every contest in the country. We had friends all over. ... He’s out of it now, and it’s a shame, but the real shame is Alzheimer’s.”

J.P. sings along to barber shop quartet classics such as “I’ve Been Working on the Railroad,” and “Let Me Call You Sweetheart.”

He moved to Victoria in 1953 from North Carolina and ran a business called Carpet Masters for more than 40 years. His wife says he is known for his honesty and good reputation.

“He’s singing. He knows the words,” someone in the crowd says, surprised.

His wife says, “Those are such old songs. He sung them for so many years he remembers them. That was his life. That’s all he wanted to do.”

She looks on, smiling and singing along, too.

But when Woodring introduces a special song for the couple, “Just a Closer Walk,” she looks a little withdrawn and folds her arms over her chest as if to protect herself. It was a religious song they both liked that spoke of the “toil and snares” of this world.

Joann had to make some very tough choices when her husband’s condition worsened about three years ago.

“I didn’t have any advice. It just happened, and I wasn’t expecting it. I really didn’t notice it. I don’t know. It just seems like it happened overnight.”

Medicine didn’t seem to help, either. “When you get it, you get it. It just gets worse,” she said.

The move to a care center was emotional.

“When I first had to take him, I cried. I said, ‘I don’t want you to go,’ and he said, ‘Honey, I understand. I know I’m too much trouble for you, and I’ll go.’”

At the time, Joann was undergoing chemotherapy for lung cancer .

Faced with such frustration, at times she has to apologize, “I’m sorry, honey, I didn’t mean to fuss at you.”

Her feelings are hurt easily because of many things: “...the state I’m in, the pressure, the stress. And if he doesn’t talk nice to me, it hurts my feelings bad.

“He’s adjusting,” she says to his life in a care center.

In November, J.P. was transferred to AlzCare, where a registered nurse is on duty 24 hours a day.

“He’s happy there, as happy as he can be, you know, under the circumstances.”

Donna Howell, Alz-Care manager, says that’s the goal.

“All of us who work here believe their last years shouldn’t just be a matter of surviving until death. It should be quality-filled.”

Although the Hulins no longer live together at their home in Victoria, Joann spends as much time with him as possible.

“I love him so much, and so I’m with him a lot and he depends on me.”

She realizes her husband’s health is fading. A different care center gave him drugs to keep him quiet, she says. “He can be testy, but that’s not good to give them drugs.”

Joann, who admits she is depressed, copes with the situation the best she can. Unaware that support groups for caregivers exist in the Crossroads region, she asks, “Do we have some? I didn’t even know we had any. I think it would help to talk.”

She continues to make pies twice a week for her husband and visits him almost daily, even though her daughter tells her she needs to stay home and rest now and then.

“He tells me how much he loves me, and I love him so much. I kept myself from crying before the party ’cause I didn’t want to go out there with red eyes.”

Celebrating his birthday, she says, with all the singing gives her some happiness.

Christina Burke is a reporter for the Advocate. Contact her at 361-580-6516.

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