It Had to Happen

It had to happen.

I've been directing or singing in the Methodist Choir for years, on and off for over thirty years.  In the beginning we were a twenty voice choir. Back then, my brother Carl directed the choir. (Others took turns directing, too.)  Sharon Block, the pastor's wife, and their three children sang with the choir.  The choir members had sung for years.  There was Ed Werner, who sang until just before his death at the age of 90.  Dolores Holmes, the business teacher at the high school was there.  Doris Barliment.  And so many others.

After a while I began to direct.  Then the Blocks left, and that was four fewer singers.  Then Pastor Ben arrived from the Philippines.  He could sing bass, and his wife sang soprano.  Still as the years passed, our choir diminished.  Each year or two, we lost a singer as we all got older.

Our new pastor and her husband don't sing in the choir. Our choir dwindled down to twelve regular singers. This year, Elaine got married and moved away.  Alice was in a car accident and hurt her feet.  She may be back, but we're not sure. Every choir practice was a juggling act. I had to figure out ways to make a smaller choir sound wonderful.  Sometimes we added bells or a flute.  I found fancy piano arrangements.  We called ourselves the Keystone Choir because we often had to change the music for services at the last minute. And we aged.  Vera celebrated her 75th anniversary of singing in the choir.  Our average age is around 75.

This morning, Big John, our bass, wasn't in church.  Neither was Lavern, our tenor nor his son-in-law Scott.  Only one male singer left and he can't sing without Big John next to him.  Others were missing, too, which left three sopranos and two altos.  We tried the piece I've always pulled out when we were short members, a two part version of "Peace Like a River" but it just wasn't workable.  We didn't have enough voices to pull even that simple song off.  For the first time ever, we didn't have an anthem.

We decided to call a strike.  We took the choir robes and draped them over the pews in the choir loft at the front of the church.  I announced at the beginning of services that unless we got new members, the choir would come to an end.  After church, two people talked to us about joining, but neither of them have ever sung in a choir.

So it stands until next Sunday's practice.  We'll see what happens then.