I am sitting here on Monday morning with an upset stomach, courtesy of a terrible mistake I made yesterday afternoon – one of those awful moments where you forget something really important. . . almost as bad as one of those nightmares where you walk through the door at school having forgotten to put on your pants.  Nothing quite that tragic occurred, but almost as bad. . .

I had a busy afternoon yesterday, with a series of rehearsals for the summer RTG musical and then a 4:00 rehearsal with chamber singers alumni. (We’re putting together a concert with my dad for June 24th.)  In between the rehearsals, I thought I had enough free time to run over to Carthage and try to track down the music for an Edvard Grieg which I wanted the guys of the group to sing.

Eureka!  Even with the completely chaotic current state of my office, I was still able to lay my hands on the music in fairly short order, and i was up in the office making some copies when my cell phone rang.  It was Polly, my sister in law.  “This is Greg.”  “Hi. This is Polly.”  (said almost as tho’ I might have been expecting her call.)  “Oh hi.”  “I was just calling to see if you were okay.”  “Excuse me?” “I just wanted to make sure you were okay.”

And then it hit me! ! !    I was supposed to play piano for her choir at Tremper’s graduation ceremonies that afternoon, right around 2:20!   I glanced at the clock – it was 2:40. “O MY GOD!!!!”  I shrieked into the phone – I hope Polly wasn’t deafened by the blast.  She was calm as she reassured me that she had played for them and it went okay; she was just calling to make sure that I wasn’t in a ditch someplace- or worse. I continued to blunder through more apologies when the signal was lost.

Honestly, I sort of wished at that moment that I HAD been in a ditch someplace.  I felt so badly, thinking of Polly standing by the doorway of the high school gym, looking at the clock, wondering where I in the world I was, and probably formulating several different strategies in her head before eventually resigning herself to having to play this piece herself.  Fortunately, it was something she could play just fine – and maybe in a strange sort of way it helped make this a little less difficult performance emotionally for her by not allowing her to really look into her singers’ faces.  (She is losing some marvelous singers with this graduation- including a crop of singers who started Tremper when she did.)   But on the other hand, my mistake in a sense robbed her of that opportunity to look into the faces of Scott and Megan and Dylan and Julie and others who are about to move on.  Nothing should have distracted her from the deepest meaning of that moment, and I’m sure in a sense that she ended up feeling very little in that moment except confusion and frustration.   It would be a little like someone right before my last Chamber Singers concert running up to me and saying, “Guess what.  In addition to conducting the chamber singers, we also need you to give the sermon.”

Anyway, I’ve already emailed Polly my sincerest apology- which I hope she will pass on to the students- and I’m tempted to take a full page ad out in the local paper to say “If You Are Having Greg Berg Do Anything For You, Please Call Him And Remind Him Of It. Multiple Times.”  Actually, for as busy and as seemingly chaotic as my life is, I really don’t forget stuff as much as people might imagine.  But when I do forget something, it sure tends to be a Doozy.

At least I’m still remembering my pants.  Thank goodness for small favors.

pictured above:  part of one month in my desk calendar. Note how jumbled and scrambled the entries tend to be. Why I can’t seem to  write things in on anything but a diagonal slope is beyond me=-  a sign of surpassing genius?  Somehow today I rather doubt that explanation.