Moving On

When I first came back to San Bernardino in 2018 after a disastrous job in Placer, I returned to the church where I had played for the 4 p.m. Saturday Mass.

No, the singer said. I don’t need more guitar players. Check the 8 o’clock mass. They need musicians.

I showed up at 8 the next morning with my guitar and was given music. Then the Mass began and the choir started up. And I was appalled.

They sang out of tune. They sang out of time with each other. They didn’t always sing the same words.

Yikes, I thought. I can’t be part of this car crash.

When the Mass was over, I packed up the guitar, ready to slip out the back. But I was stopped by several of the choir members asking if I would be back. I hemmed and hawed. Then a guy came up and said he’d play bass for the choir if I came back. A woman said she played saxophone and would come with that instrument if I returned. A young woman with purple hair said she’d play the piano if I agreed to come back.

What can I say? I love to be needed.

A month later we were rehearsing a hymn and the choir was getting it all wrong. So I stopped them and went through the song with them slowly. Then I said “I know I’m not in charge but…”

“Oh, but you’re our leader,” someone said.

“What?”

They all nodded. So I was elected choir director.

That was 4 years ago.

This weekend if you show up for the 8 o’clock Mass, you will hear a choir on key, on time, singing in unison. They have come 1000 miles from the day I first heard them in 2018.

In the meantime, though, I’ve moved to a house nearly an hour away from the church. I have to get up at 6 a.m. Sunday to be there for 8 a.m. Mass.

Last week when I returned from Michigan, another guitar player was helping the choir. I talked to him after Mass and he agreed to take over for me.

So this Sunday will be the last morning I play with them. As the old saying goes, my work here is done. Time to find another disaster.