My friends - Let me say first that I am very grateful for the kind messages that many of you sent concerning my episode late last week with the adverse reaction to a new medication that sent me to the hospital briefly. I am close to being fully recovered from that unpleasant situation. Modern medicines work wonders for us 98% of the time - it is that other 2% that can be difficult. I had indicated that I planned to post another essay from those written by Dr. Gordon Wilson. Since I was unable to post it then, I am sending it along today. This selection is from his little book, "Fidelity Folks", which reminisces about his childhood in Fidelity in Calloway County, better known to us as New Concord. The subject of this narrative is, "Singing Round the Organ". Tomorrow, we will move to Graves County. -B ========================================================================= SINGING ROUND THE ORGAN -A. Gordon Wilson Fidelity Folks Organs were by no means common at Fidelity, and every one might be regarded as a community instrument. The owner did not lock it up and selfishly enjoy his treasure; he opened it to the group that always went visiting on Sundays or went to sit till bedtime at any season of the year. Sunday afternoon was the especial time to gather around the organ and sing until it was time to go home to feed the stock. It was not necessary to be a real musician to play the accompaniment to the songs that we sang. Some good chords would do, if one did not know how to read the soprano and make up some bass. Most organists, though, could do pretty well for their training and were generous of their time. Some one besides the organist would lead the music, most people, male and female, singing the air. There was usually a neighborhood alto, with that penetrating but plaintive wail that altos seem to have forgotten in most city choirs. Most homes would not tolerate downright "quick and devilish" music on Sunday, that is, popular songs that had not become classics. We could sing "Maggie" and "Darling, I Am Growing Old," but "Hot Time in the Old Town Tonight," made popular by the Spanish-American War, sounded too much like dancing. The old folks would often join in with us on patriotic and sentimental songs, as well as on the old and new religious songs. Very rarely we opened the front room on some week day, when high-toned company came. Then we could sing anything. Comic songs came by devious routes into Fidelity. A dashing cousin of mine would bring us several each time he came, that is, bring in his memory, for sheet music was unknown. He had heard them at the opera house at the county seat and loved to overawe us with his sophistication. A little girl in our neighborhood came home on a visit from the Masonic Orphans' Home, at Louisville, and taught us to sing "Kentucky Babe" and "Who Threw the Overalls in Mistress Murphy's Chowder?" However naughty these songs might be on Sunday, they were enjoyed by everybody on week days. Early in my life I developed a repertory of songs and readings that I had to give again and again. My prize ballad was one left over from the gold-digging days of the West, "Joe Bowers." Joe was from Pike County, Missouri, and went to California to the gold fields to make enough money to wed his sweetheart back home. He "made a mighty lucky strike," finding gold in startling quantities, but his Sally meanwhile had married a butcher "whose hair was awful red" and had added insult to injury by bringing into the world a baby with red hair. Poor Joe was heart-broken and went about his diggings lamenting the cruelty of women. Some years ago I attended a program that reminded me of Fidelity. It was planned in honor of Stephen Collins Foster and included group singing around the organ of Foster's best-known songs. Everybody who was there felt that it was the only way to present properly these effective songs, so full of folk flavor. ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++