Yesterday was my 48th birthday, and it was one of the stranger ones in recent memory. It may have been on a Saturday this year, but it was far from a day off. I needed to attend a day-long workshop for NATS- the National Association of Teachers of Singing, I might have been seriously tempted to skip the event except that the special guest was a voice teacher from Indiana University who specializes in teaching men. And since my studio at Carthage currently consists entirely of male singers, I couldn’t imagine missing this.
My role for the spring workshop (and I certainly use the term “spring” with gigantic quotes around it, but that’s how it was billed) was not just as interested observer but also as the piano accompanist for the Winners Recital. This is something which we started three years ago, in which the singers who win first place in their respective divisions (freshman women, freshman men, sophomore women, etc.) are invited to come and sing for our workshop. They are welcome to bring along their own accompanist for the recital, but in many cases that’s not possible- and for those cases, I step in and play for them. So I spent most of the afternoon in fifteen-minute rehearsals with each of my “clients” right up until 3:00, recital time. It went SO well, too, with all six singers I played for – but the crowning glory came at the end of the afternoon when the audience – – – singers, voice teachers, interested onlookers, rose and serenaded me with “Happy Birthday” in unbelievably splendid fashion. I only regret that I didn’t have my portable cassette recorder with me- or my camera. (At that point, my camera was still MIA – see yesterday’s blog entry for clarification.) It had already been a fun and valuable day, but this made me absolutely regret-free that I had needed to “work”’ on my birthday.
Because it was a little tricky to know when I was going to be back, we couldn’t really plan a celebration with anyone else, so the evening was devoted to Kathy and me and dinner at The Chancery. . . and it was great. One funny thing- I had just opened up my birthday card from kathy when our waitress walked up – and I quickly hid it from view, wanting to avoid any waitress serenades. (Which I HATE.) But when our waitress looked rather confused and concerned, I leaned in to her and said “It’s my birthday – but I really don’t want it celebrated with anything here . . . and so help me, if you come to this table with four of your colleagues and sing me some inane Happy Birthday song, I promise you will receive a two cent tip.” No, I didn’t quite say it like that- in fact, I joked about it with her, and even pretended to be disappointed when my bowl of soup arrived without a candle in the middle of it – but she knew I meant business, and our dinner was just what we wanted it to be – quiet and nice and delicious.
(One of my memories of restaurant birthday serenades is from the Happy Joe’s Pizza Parlor in Decorah. The waitress would come to the table, and then announce to the entire restaurant- typically in a flat, monotone, lifeless voice – “Ladies and gentlemen, today is a very special day at Happy Joe’s. Greg is turning 48 today. Let’s give him a rousing Happy Joe’s birthday cheer. . . “ Then there are those Olive Garden birthday “songs” that are spoken/sung at breakneck speed over loud rhythmic clapping in which you’re lucky to understand one word out of ten: “Sodr frug lam zad Happy . . . plom griz lom is fluglay . . . klum criddle lumoprandy . . . and grummle plox today! Happy Birthday!” Talk about a lose-lose situation; I wonder who hates the experience more- the birthday boy or girl, the wait staff shanghai’d into singing, or the innocent bystanders who get to “enjoy” it.)
Anyway, we were spared such “fun,” – and the perfect cherry on top of the birthday sundae came on our way home when we stopped by Lynn and Walter’s to see how he was recuperating after some recent surgery. Much laughter ensued, as it usually does when we’re with them, which was a perfect end to the evening. Actually, the perfect end of the evening would have been to walk into our house and head up to bed- – – but instead, I got to park in front of the computer and finish up the trumpet parts for Easter Sunday, which I promised to bring to church this morning. So the day both began and ended with work, but at least it was music-work rather than ditch-digging work. And by the time I finally settled into bed, I was feeling every one of my 48 years right to my bones- but that’s okay too. . . just like it’s okay to turn 48. It certainly beats the alternative, which is to NOT turn 48.