We now return you to our Valentine’s Day dinner narrative that may actually feature the previously mentioned Valentine's theme.
Fire, Ice, and Hearts – A Valentine’s Banquet
Part Two: For the Love… That Lady Lifted My Act!
So after informing the car owner her vehicle remained unfixed, but that we were fairly sure we hadn’t made it any worse in our unproductive efforts, we returned to claim our long-vacant seats.A number of people had filled up the spots around our abandoned coats. I’m still getting a feel for the congregation, so I wasn’t sure if they were from our church or not. A quick look at my friend told me these were strangers and it might be best to shift seats.
We had few qualms about moving. Our initial selection of the location had largely been based on a decent view of the speaker’s podium, and more importantly, the observation that, “There’s a lot of chocolate here. This’ll do.” There were plenty of Hershey’s kisses spread around tables and the chance to move on to a fresh, untapped supply was an easy temptation to give in to.
We took refuge with a bunch of young kids from our church. To be precise, it was a set of three brothers. I’d talked with some of them before and knew one had been tapped to play a trumpet solo that evening. He wasn’t excited about the idea, but the pastor’s wife/church music director had been determined.
Note: If you’ve never had a driven church musical director go after you to put you down for a solo, it’s hard to explain how difficult it is to resist such overtures. It can be done, I know from experience, but only after a long-fought, ugly battle (and one of you may have to leave the town before the other gives up). In looking at the inexperience of the young trumpeter and the energy of the pastor’s wife, I have to conclude the kid never had a chance.
The trumpet was stored beneath the table ready to be pulled out at any moment, since he hadn’t been told when he would be perforuming. Other churches had offered to provide little interludes throughout the evening and he wasn’t sure where he fit in the program.
In the meantime, chocolates were dug into and glasses were filled. My automotive friend had two glasses because he’d kept the glass he’d filled from his first seat and used the glass present at his newer seat. He joked how he liked having a cup for tea and water… until he sampled the tea. Grimacing, but suddenly glad that he had a spare, he would only drink from the water glass for the rest of the evening and the abandoned tea cup would later become a target for the candy wrappers.
Food was served and conversations briefly paused for consumption. After enough time had passed, my pastor, who was the master of ceremonies for the dinner, introduced the first two singers. I forget what church they were from, but it was an elderly couple who had brought their own electronic synthesizer.
After some slow, joking opening remarks, they started singing “Love Lifted Me.”
Partway through the song I realized the young trumpeter in front of me was staring dumbstruck.
“They’re playing my song!” he said. “Love Lifted Me” was the song he’d prepared for the dinner and now these senior citizens were leading the group in a sing-along.
Imagine being a middle schooler who, very reluctantly, agreed to play a song. He was already getting nervous about playing in front of 100-odd people, but now find that someone else is performing the song you’ve been practicing for weeks.
What am I supposed to do now, he asked.
His brothers, my friend, and I were all eager to offer suggestions:
-- Blast a single note, take a flamboyant bow, and sit down.
-- Just play the song extremely fast, like “Flight of the Bumblebee!”
-- Play another song with “love” in the title. I would suggest “Addicted to Love,” but I would guess you don’t know it and it probably wouldn’t be appropriate anyway.
And my personal favorite option:
“You play the song and we’ll do an interpretive dance in the background.”
The trumpeter was trying to laugh about the whole deal, but in between jokes you could tell he was a bit apprehensive. Other performers came on, with our pastor making bad jokes in between.
Things were going just fine when the banquet took a sharp, albeit expected twist, and the spotlight settled on our end of the banquet hall.
stay tuned…
