HERE WE COME
A-CAROLING
20 December 2002
I can't remember the last time I went Christmas caroling. It was
probably umpty-ump years ago here in Davis. A long time ago, the Davis Comic Opera Co.
used to gather at someone's home, have eats and drinks, take books and candles and go up
and down the streets of the neighborhood serenading the neighbors. It was always a great
way to get into the holiday mood.
The Lamplighters used to go caroling in San Francisco too. We
managed to catch that tradition at its end (unless the new crop of singers have revived
it). Those were great fun, too, because we went singing on the cable car and ended up at
the Buena Vista bar for Irish coffee. Now that's the way to warm the cockles of
your heart!
I've always loved singing Christmas carols. 12 years of Catholic
school choir and you pretty much get to know all of the songs backwards and forwards. I
was an alto, so got to sing all the harmonies, which imbedded themselves pretty indellibly
in my brain.
We would, from time to time, go to visit nursing homes around San
Francisco. Those were not my favorite times. The halls were long and barren, the old
people scared me, and the places always smelled of urine. But I still loved to sing.
Tonight I went caroling again. A group of about 20 of us, most of
whom I didn't know. The hostess was Cathy Speck, one half of the musical duo Duval Speck.
The house was beautifully decorated, the table heavily laden with
goodies, egg nog, mulled cider, hot buttered rum, and spiced teas waiting for sipping, and
Belle, the dog, wandering around wearing antlers.
When we had all warmed up with something either hot or alcoholic (or
both) and gathered music sheets, funny hats, bells, and whatever else we were going to
bring, we took off for one of the local convalescent hospitals.
Things haven't changed much since I was in grammar school. The halls
are still long and barren, the place still smells of urine, but at least the old people
don't scare me any more (heck--I'll be there myself all too soon!)
We had dueling choirs in the first place. When we arrived and began
singing in the hallway, a group of oriental students came in from another hall and were
singing something else. An attendant came and shuttled them off to another wing of the
hospital. We continued singing and gathered a crowd of women in their wheel chairs or
merry walkers, some of whom sang along with us. We even had a violin accompaniment, as one
of our group had brought her violin along. The patients seemed to be enjoying it,
until one woman walked right through our group to the bird cage behind us to feed the bird
(everybody's a critic!).
As we continue singing (ever relentless), the front door opened and
in walked the choir from one of the local churches, with their hymn books. They took off
down another corridor and soon we were at cross purposes, their lovely harmonies not
blending well with our ragged, tentative voices.
We figured it was time to move onto the next place, which we did.
Here there were no patients in the halls and no other choirs, so we wandered up and down
the halls, stopping where there were people who looked interested in what we were doing.
Some would call out requests and we would search through our song books to accommodate
them.
Our very best number was "Joy to the World," where we all
knew the harmonies and with the reverberation off the walls of the hospital, it sounded
pretty damn good. We didn't always hit it that accurately.
A woman asked if we knew any French songs, which we did not, but one
woman in the group spoke French and they had a nice conversation. I was pretty much
following it about 80%, surprised that I remembered so much. The woman was thrilled to
have someone to talk to in her native language (though she was also fluent in English) and
so we lost one member of our group, who stayed behind to talk to this woman.
When we reached the front door of the convalescent hospital, the
group began to disband, as people turned in their song sheets, their antlers, and their
jingle bells and head on home.
I began to get a nice feeling of Christmas as I drove home through
all the neighborhoods with the light decorations (reindeer and spiral Christmas trees seem
to be the "in" thing this year--like the dripping lites were a few years
back--and continue to be).
Yes, we really MUST decorate that tree any day now. Time to deck
those halls with boughs of holly. |
