Tony Chatowsky took things over in his wheelchair during a veterans pinning ceremony at John Clarke Senior Living last week and requested permission to sing to the American flag; he was handed a microphone. What came next was a rendition of “You're a Grand Old Flag” with the audience singing along, a performance that has since racked up more than 17,000 views and hundreds of comments online.
The 89-year-old Middletown resident, a veteran who was drafted into the Navy during the Vietnam War in 1968 after beginning his military service in the Coast Guard, served roughly 30 years between active duty and active reserve, according to WJAR. The pinning ceremony, part of John Clarke Senior Living's annual veterans celebration, drew residents and staff of the facility, and organizers gave Chatowsky the floor once he made his request known.
Chatowsky has made a habit of volunteering to sing whenever opportunities or choruses needed voices, the station reports, so his request wasn't entirely out of character. Staff from Hope Hospice Health, who were on hand for the ceremony, recorded the performance and shared it on social media, where commenters have praised both his service and what they called his courage to sing in front of the room.
A Quiet Life With a View of the Flag
Chatowsky said he had no idea the clip would take off the way it has. He lives with his wife, Florence, in an apartment in the senior living section of John Clarke Senior Living in Middletown, a return to Rhode Island after the couple spent years away. The pair, who have nine children together, moved back to Rhode Island from Florida in 2021.
Originally from Providence, Chatowsky doesn't keep a television in his apartment and instead spends much of his time looking out the window, where he has a direct view of the American flag, according to WJAR's reporting. Florence has planted red, white, and blue flowers in the garden outside, a small, recurring reminder of the ceremony that made her husband briefly internet-famous.
A Life Shaped by Service and a Side Passion for Fish
Chatowsky told WJAR that the freedoms he values most in America are freedom of religion and freedom of speech, sentiments that seemed to animate his decision to ask for the microphone in the first place. Away from the ceremony, his biography includes an unusual creative streak: a Yahoo News report describes him as a retired Navy physician who began making fish prints about 30 years ago, starting out by printing fish designs on T-shirts for his children.
That hobby grew into something larger. The same report notes Chatowsky lived in Florida for 27 years before returning to Rhode Island, and that he had opened what's described as the Once Fish Print Museum, which was set to debut in Portsmouth on Earth Day 2023 and feature more than three rooms of his original prints.
For now, though, it's the sight of an 89-year-old veteran singing from his wheelchair to a flag he can see from his window that has resonated with viewers. Whether or not Chatowsky expected the attention, the ceremony at John Clarke Senior Living gave him exactly the kind of moment he's long volunteered to create for others.
