Time to re-choir

It occurred to me in the past few days that for most of my life, I have been in a choir of some fashion. Usually it was a church choir, but sometimes it included a community choir or school choir.

I’m not sure there’s anything else I’ve done so diligently, even though it never actually occurred to me that I was being diligent. It was just something I did. I enjoyed it. Big choirs, small choirs, medium choirs. Longer than my work at the newspaper, longer than my marriage. Now that I think of it, I suppose the only thing I have done more diligently during my life is eat too much.

It started when I was in my teens – not eating, but choir singing. I walked into choir practice at our church one night and was welcomed with open arms. Most church choirs are like that, unless they’re so big you have to present your credentials and then hope for an audition. Since then, I’ve had a lot of experiences. I’ve sung beside people who were better than me, and I’ve sung beside people who shouldn’t have been singing at all, but whose willingness to try and desire to serve insured them a spot in their church choir.

There have been only a few times when I’ve not been a member of a choir. Even when I was in the Air Force, for at least part of the time I was in a choir – then I dropped out. Yes, I did drop out a few times, too.

But I came back. I always have, and the times I was gone were always a lot shorter than the times I was singing. When I wasn’t doing it, I missed it.

I can’t say I was a particularly great singer, though I was a pretty good addition to a tenor section. I just enjoyed the singing, and the fellowship. Listening to the preacher’s sermon from behind became more natural than hearing or seeing him (or her, eventually) from the front.

(I could also see, at at least one church, who was falling asleep in the congregation, though that knowledge was simply a by-product, not a goal.)

Singing in the choir was simply what I did. It was my version of serving. It was one of the few things I was good at, and I enjoyed it. And it continued for years, without me thinking about how many years it was.

Then it all came to me as I robed up recently for the first time in a long time, preparing to sing with a new choir. I was doing this so I could continue to give my service in the way I felt I was meant to. In doing so, I was leaving a church I had attended for years, but where there was no longer a choir.

A number of things – Covid, not being able to find an organist or director, maybe a few other things – combined to make me choirless. And after so many years of being in a choir, I felt a little lost.

There was a mention or two of me becoming the choir director, but I think it was desperation on the part of a few people. I’m not a choir director. I’m a choir member. I can lead singing. I can even step in for a director on occasion, but full time? I simply don’t have the education or the qualifications. Or the desire.

Anyway, I already knew the director and organist and some of the members of my new choir, and they recently started having choir practice again, after a time of being shut down due to the pandemic. And when I asked, they said, sure, come along. So I’m back in a choir, and happy about it, and praying that Covid doesn’t close us down again.

• • • •

You know, hard as it might be to believe, a heat advisory does have an up side. At least for me.

It’s my excuse, your see. I can tell people that I’m too old and frail to go work in the yard because it’s just too doggone hot. It’s downright dangerous. Shucks, I can explain to folks, I feel like I’m taking my life in my hands just walking to the car, or hiking the parking lot at Walmart.

• • • •

And while we’re on the subject of yards, I wonder if anyone else is seeing in their yards what I’m seeing in mine.

There is a part of my yard that looks like it’s autumn already. Leaves everywhere. Not green leaves, brown leaves. I go look up in the trees, and I don’t see any bare, sickly spots. There seems to be as many leaves as always, up there.

So what’s the deal, down here? Is it the hot weather? Does it have to do with it being fairly dry recently? Or does Ma Nature get a kick out of starting early with the leaves, just to give me a hard time? Or are leaves simply appearing from some other dimension? Is this some alien conspiracy?

I can see the headline: “Man Croaks While Raking Autumn Leaves in the Heat of August.” A little long, perhaps, but I’d like to think my passing would be seen as dramatic.

In the meantime, surely there’s someone out there more knowledgeable than I am, who can tell me what’s happening with the leaves.

(EDITOR’S NOTE: David Nichol is a freelance writer who retired from the Times-Herald. He can be contacted at nicholdb@cablelynx.com.)