Introducing the ‘Wash Your Hands Overture’ and other quarantine tunes

Social activities at Carolina Arbors, a retirement community, have ground to a halt.

For Jim and Gail Packett, a married couple with a flair for theatrics, that meant lightening the mood by producing humorous coronavirus-themed videos for their fellow residents.

One video is titled “COVID-19 Rising,” a parody of Creedence Clearwater Revival’s “Bad Moon Rising.”

Jim plays the guitar, while wearing pajama pants, while he sings about getting cabin fever and running out of toilet paper and hand sanitizer. Gail Packett, wearing a bathrobe, is responsible for the funny moments in the videos. She dances around him to act out the lyrics while occasionally spraying him with disinfectant spray.

“Don’t go out tonight, let’s try to save a life,” Jim sings. “COVID-19’s on the rise.”

Gail Packett stars in the “Wash Your Hands Overture,” still wearing her bathrobe. In the black-and-white video, giving it an old-timey feel, she washes her hands dramatically to the tune of “William Tell Overture.”

“Most of them are being goofy and silly, referencing the virus, to help people laugh,” said Jim Packett, 64.

Gail Packett, 63, is part of the retirement community’s theater club and choir. But now she and her husband are using their creative energies to produce these videos.

Another video honors people working on the front lines, including health-care workers, as well as sanitation workers, delivery workers and grocery store workers.

“We appreciate them and god bless them,” Jim Packett said.

“They’re right there on the front line and working really hard,” said Gail Packett.

The Packetts are retired, so the pandemic has not affected their employment. But it has limited the social couple and affected an upcoming trip.

“Other people are impacted the most,” she said. “Our hearts go out to the waiters and waitresses.”

They hope some good will come out of the pandemic.

“Renewed compassion for one another, appreciation for one another and appreciating the little things in life that you took for granted,” Jim said.

The videos can be seen on the Carolina Arbors Theater Club YouTube page.

This story was originally published April 18, 2020 at 8:00 AM.