Over the last couple of days I have been catching up with a high school friend with whom I have had no communication in more than thirty years. (You gotta love Facebook! What wonderful reconnections and reunions are made possible by it.) Anyway, one of the questions this friend asked me was about how I came to teach at Carthage. As I told her the story, I mentioned the date of April 12th, 1991- and it was only a few hours later, as I was writing something in my calendar, that I realized that TODAY is April 12th.
Back on April 12, 1991 I was living in Kenosha, working full time at WGTD, beginning my third year as minister of music at Holy Communion, and continuing to court a certain young woman named Kathy Gall. Life was good.
That morning’s Kenosha News, however, bore a disturbing headline- something about Gateway Technical College entering negotiations with Wisconsin Public Radio to take over operation of WGTD… a move designed to save the college money but which was certain to drastically cut or even eliminate our local programming – and the station’s personnel. It was especially devastating (and downright humiliating) to learn about this in the paper rather than be told directly by the administration. We all spent the rest of the day stewing over this turn of events and wondering what was ahead for us and for the station which meant so much to us. (I remember the date vividly because April 12th is also the anniversary of the death of F.D.R. – and while the possible demise of WGTD couldn’t be compared to the death of a president, to us in that little studio it felt like a terrible calamity all the same.)
That evening, Kathy and I were invited to have supper with her sister Polly, and I tried to enjoy myself despite the dark cloud of worry and frustration hanging over my head. I don’t remember exactly when it was that evening that Polly suddenly said “by the way, Greg, Dr. Smith
In all my life until then – or in all the years since – I don’t think I’ve ever experienced such amazing and instant exhilaration and relief – or such a powerful sense that God had reached down and bestowed special grace to me on one of the darkest days of my adult life and given me the very best of gifts. . . Hope.
It turned out that Carthage’s head voice teacher, Richard Sjoerdsma, was going on sabbatical in the fall, and they needed someone to step in and teach his students while he was gone. At that point, I had sung a couple of times with the Kenosha Symphony and even sung a guest recital at Carthage, so they knew at least a little something about my credentials as a singer- and maybe they had a sense as well that I was not the kind of guy who would step in and try to rattle cages or throw my weight around. At any rate, they offered the opportunity to me and I was delighted to take it- and even though it was only for a single semester, I had a feeling that more good things would follow, even if I had no idea exactly how or when or where.
When Dr. Smith talked to me, they projected that I would have 12 lessons to teach – which I could manage to cover in the space of one long day. And because my two days off from the station were Sunday and Monday, it was going to fold very nicely into my schedule. And then, when the fall rolled around, Carthage found its enrollment had surged and I had 21 lessons to teach instead of 12 …. and had to go to the station’s general manager and ask for my schedule to be amended so I could have an additional afternoon off, which they graciously granted me. And so for the fall of 1991, I taught those 21 voice students the best I knew how, despite having barely taught voice at all until that point. And when Dr. Sjoerdsma returned from his sabbatical, I was still needed. (His load of voice lessons was 12, because of the classroom courses that were also part of his academic load.) And you may have figured out by now that what started out as a one semester substitution – almost a lark – has become a 19-year adventure that is still going strong.
And you may have figured out as well that – to paraphrase Mark Twain – the news of the radio station’s demise was somewhat exaggerated. 19 years later, WGTD is still open for business, operating in beautiful state-of-the-art studios, and making perhaps an even bigger impact on the community than we did back in the station’s heyday. And certainly the station remains a tremendous source of pride and joy to me all these years later.
Just as important as all that is the fact that because there was this new door of opportunity opening to me, I felt a new confidence about the future which in turn gave me the confidence to pop the question to Miss Gall. . . which I did a week or two later. And you’ve probably figured out by now that her answer was Yes, and remains Yes 19 years after we were married.
So you can see why April 12th is a very special date on the calendar for me. . . a day when it was truly darkest before the dawn.