God Bless America

 

Several weeks ago our ward music director asked me if my family would please sing "God Bless America" on the Sunday before Independence Day.  It was to be a special musical number and we would sing the whole song once through, repeating the chorus so that the congregation could sing with us.  No problem.  I agreed.

We practiced the song a few times the week before and made a plan with the kids.  Jack had no interest in being part of our Grupo de Canto, and I thought that forcing him wouldn't end well, so we excused him from the whole thing.  We decided with Cat and Eliza that the girls would sing the first two lines of the introductory verse, Ben and I would sing the next two lines, then we would all sing together for the chorus.

But the morning of the Big Day (the Sunday before the Fourth of July), as we were reviewing the song, we had Eliza sing the first two lines once by herself to make sure she really knew the words, and she sounded like a little angel.  We decided she needed a solo.  Cat has a lovely voice as well, so we were happy to give Cat a subsequent solo of her own.

When it was time for us to walk up to the front to sing, Jack suddenly decided he wanted to join us.  I decided it wasn't the time to fight him, and we just hoped for the best.  I thought he probably knew the words well enough from hearing it throughout the week, I was just a bit nervous that he might choose an inopportune time to misbehave.  (Really, is there ever a good time to misbehave?)

We got arranged around the podium and I cued Eliza by whispering in her ear when it was time to begin.  She sounded lovely.  Then Cat sang, and she sounded lovely.  Then we all sang, and I think that sounded pretty good too.  We finished the piece, I felt great about how well it went, and we began trying to get everyone to walk back down to our seats.  I was holding Eliza and Ben was trying to shoo Jack in the right direction, but suddenly, Jack lunged for the mic.  Ben and I both knew that this would not end well, and we acted out of reflex.  As I hurried to push the mic out of Jack's reach, Ben pulled Jack back and covered his mouth before he had the chance to say anything.  Seeing this split-second spectacle, the congregation immediately erupted in laughter.

After Sacrament Meeting, we had lots of people compliment us on the beautiful musical number.  And many of them were also curious to know what Jack was going to say?  I admit, I'm a little curious too, but the world will never know.

(I will tell you that when the children sang a song on Father's Day, and the kids did something cute, and the congregation laughed, Jack said very loudly, "WHAT'S SO FUNNY?" After the musical number, as soon as he got to where I was sitting, he asked in an equally loud voice, "WHY WERE YOU LAUGHING??")

Here's a home version of the song with just the kids singing, sans close-call-with-the-mic.