Hallelujah No More

 

Mike Nettleton

I quit the choir.

I know, I know. It doesn’t have quite the same impact as Bob Marley’s “I Shot the Sheriff.”

Maybe if I sang it to a reggae beat. But, no, that would be counter to the attitude and mood of the choir I quit.

Regal. Somber, Stately. Reverent. That’s what our Christmas show song lineup reflected. Smile-inducing, finger snapping, tush wriggling rhythm? Not so much.

Let me be clear. I loved singing with the choir. Even the part where I had to phonetically learn lyrics in Latin (2 this time around) or another language. I was anticipating a potato harvest worshipping cha-cha in Bratislavian  but it didn’t materialize.

Those I harmonized with are all lovely people. I have nothing but enduring respect for our choir director, the somewhat misnamed Dr. Funk. I say somewhat, because it’s the name he was born with, not chose. If he’d selected it, I’d propose he change it to Dr. White Guy From Kansas. Or perhaps Professor Placid.

To be fair, there are moments of pure ecstasy in the music he chose for the show. When the assembled voices blend into one heavenly hallelujah, it still sends little tiny fun bumps down my spine. The problem is not the sound; it’s the root of the hallelujah.

I am a devout agnostic. Not devout enough that I’d don a white shirt, tie and Goodwill store slacks to go door knocking, offering to read aloud passages from the Book of Norman. Although, I’d have to admit that several verses of the Gospel of “I Dunno” are fun to holler.

My disenchantment with organized religion dates back to the day when, at eleven years old, I saw my hellfire-and-brimstone Sunday school teacher, the off-duty lawyer Renton Frady, on the streets of Coos Bay, canoodling with a paint-and-powder woman of negotiable virtue. From then on, my choice of churches centered on who needed a power-hitting third baseman on their softball team.

The reason I quit the choir (but I didn’t shoot the pianist down) was the pervasive references to the baby Jesus and the wise men and Mother Mary. I just couldn’t stay on key while grimacing. As I wrote in my resignation letter, it felt more like a church service than entertainment. And I don’t do church anymore. Unless you’re in need of a third baseman.

So, (according to the ever-vigilant Carolyn) I need to find something else to do with my idle time. Maybe I’ll continue to draw bad cartoons for my ongoing strip “The non-adventures of Recliner Man.” Which, ironically, features a hero with nothing but idle time. Or perhaps I’ll audition for a community theater play. Face it, there’s nobody better at portraying a dissolute wino on stage than me. Or, I could just hunker down and play computer cribbage, eat cashews and occasionally blog. Yesssss! That’s the ticket!

To satisfying my singing Jones, I could occasionally wander into a smoke-infused karaoke bar and belt out Gloria Estaban’s Conga to accompany the wriggling video on the screen.

“C’mon baby do the conga. You know you can’t control yourself any longuh!”

Hallelujah!!!

 

Autumn

 

Carolyn J. Rose

There isn't a bite in the air. Yet. But on fog-shrouded mornings there's certainly a nibble. And even a gnawing.

Evenings bring a welling up of colder air from shaded areas of the yard.

Birds are gathering in flocks and nipping off berries. They're stripping leaves from sunflowers and watching squirrels chomping at the drooping heads.

Pine cones cluster in tight rows. Splotches of red and shadings of gold decorate trees soon to have their leaves stolen by a thrashing wind.

I start to see Halloween decorations in yards and start to long for simpler times when we cut out a few bat-like shapes from black construction paper to stick on the windows, carved pumpkins, and wore costumes scavenged from trunks in the attic. I rail inwardly about commercialization and jumping the season. But I say nothing to give myself away as a fogey, a curmudgeon, a stick-in-the-mud, a relic.

I think instead about my favorite things about the season. Not that ubiquitous pumpkin spice, but the scent of brittle leaves as I walk through drifts of color.

The first bite of a crisp apple. Candied pecans. Soups. Warm bread. The sound of rain on the roof after a dry summer. And the feeling of a sloughing off, a preparation for renewal, for spring.

The Great and Small Disappointments of Life

 

Carolyn J. Rose

 

In my eight decades on earth I've suffered some major disappointments: shattered romances, jobs I didn't get, novels that were rejected, and the blows of mortality in general. Recalling them means a tumbling fall into the abyss of loss and pain. So lately I shove those thoughts aside and replace them with memories of smaller disappointments, those that stung at the time, but now conjure a  smile, a chuckle, or a wry laugh.

The brownies not meant for me. After a long day at high school and a 30-minute ride on a bus seemingly devoid of shock absorbers or significant ventilation to overpower the body odor of a load of teenagers, I'd arrive home ready to stuff my face. Apples, celery, cereal, and toast were always available, but I craved sugar. My mother, however, was a nurse and not keen on an endless supply of cookies or cake. So I'd be thrilled to find a pan of brownies cooling on the counter. The thrill, however, would be smothered by the sign next to the pan: “Do not touch. These are for the PTA bake sale.”

 To this day, the smell of brownies makes me wonder how much the PTA made from that pan and what they spent the money on. I can assure you that it wasn't put toward improving cafeteria lunches.

 The canned fruit cocktail with only one cherry: Any kid back in the day knew the best thing in that can was the cherry. And any kid with a sibling probably knew that the fight was on once the can opener had done its thing. It was a sad day indeed when it wasn't my turn to get that little red treat. And it was a day nearly as sad when I got it and discovered it was merely half a cherry.

 I haven't eaten canned fruit cocktail since childhood. I get my cherry fix in the kind of cocktail I can order where a bartender will nod at my request for more than one cherry and stick as many on the decorative toothpick as it will hold.

 A coyote could outrun a roadrunner: Years of believing the opposite, thanks to those cartoons, went down the tubes when I finally sought the truth. In a sprint, a coyote in good health could overtake and capture the bird. It was months before I tamped down my disappointment by considering that the cartoon coyote wasn't in the best of shape due to the unceasing traumatic failures of all those Acme products. Perhaps the coyote should have sought products from another company. Perhaps if he had, he could have caught that pesky bird.

But then what? Would the capture mean an even greater disappointment for me? Best not to go there.

I no longer wear size 6 shoes. Some positive things have come with aging: retiring, taking advantage of senior rates, and the appetite decline that means I now wear size 6 jeans. Unfortunately, aging also means feet spread and lengthen, so I'm now in a size 8.

Sure, I still gaze longingly at shoes on the racks labeled 6. And I linger as I pass the 7s. I consider employing a shoehorn, shoving and squeezing, gritting my teeth, and ordering my cramping toes to stop complaining. But I don't.

Aging, while bringing with it many aches and pains, has so far left intact enough brain cells to send a strongly worded message to my vanity to cease and desist.