Broadway musicals and bald guys

      Today?s lesson is about Broadway show tunes and bald guys. There is a connection, but it might take a few paragraphs to get there.

      Charlotte Lamb and her Fairfield Community Chorus presented a show-tune filled hour last Sunday that was pure delight. The crowd filled the First United Methodist Church sanctuary. I listened and took a few pictures for the paper, but the rest of me was back in time.

      Back before stereos and compact discs, there were record players and a 1960s household necessity called a hi-fi. Every summer, my mom tried to get three boys to read books and listen to the hi-fi for an appreciation of culture and nature. Our house was filled with booming show tunes. I was the only kid on the block who knew all the words to ?Surrey with the Fringe on Top? from ?Oklahoma!?. ?Man from La Mancha? had ?Dulcinea? and ?The Impossible Dream? performed by Richard Kiley, who played Don Quixote. When Mother Superior in ?Sound of Music? sang ?Climb Every Mountain,? my mom would turn up the sound a few notches.

      The really embarrassing part was the bird call records. After playing baseball or messing around outside for a good part of the morning, a bunch of kids ended up in our basement for a pool tournament. From upstairs, you could hear a guy speaking just above a whisper. I assume he was trying not to scare off the birds.

      ?The white-throated sparrow,? he identified them one at a time. ?Its distinctive call seems to say, ?Here old Sam Peabody, Peabody, Peabody.? Listen closely.?

      By this time, the guys in the basement were rolling on the floor laughing at Mr. Bird Call and doing bad imitations of the white-throated sparrow.

      ?Really, Mrs. Wilson, I don?t tell anyone that you listen to bird calls on your hi-fi,? said Jimmy Armstrong, who thought he was really doing my mom a favor by keeping it a secret.

      I never became a bird watcher. My brothers didn?t either. I?ll never know if one of the kids in the basement developed an appreciation for bird warbling. It wasn?t because my mom didn?t try.

      My early exposure to Broadway show tunes made an impression. I had no idea what was in store for me at the Sunday afternoon concert. I got the grass cut in time to watch the White Sox game at 1 p.m. The game should have been over by the time the concert started at 4 p.m. Extra innings spoiled that. I put on a clean shirt, got the camera and went to take a picture. My motivation was obligation.

      I can remember thinking it would be bad manners to bring a radio into the church. But extra innings on a quiet Sunday afternoon was making obligation difficult. A few numbers from ?The Music Man? changed all that. My head was full of summer afternoons, the old hi-fi, and bird calls. It was great. Then it hit me.

      There sure were a lot of bald guys in the community chorus. I started checking them off in the program. Rodger Gillaspie, Robert Glocke, Jim Higdon, Keith Hyde ? and then a few with some creative combing jobs. I hope I?m not offending anyone, but bald is bald. I can speak freely. The only difference between me and those guys is that I can?t sing. Jerry Main, Ron Prill, Chad Garrels (he?s the young guy), Dean Johnson and Keevin Koch made it nine out of the 26 guys in the chorus. More than one-third. Higdon and Hyde even went all the way with the shaved-head look.

      On my way out, there was Bob Gates from the First Christian Church sporting another shaved head, but with a full beard. I said I was impressed and he responded that he should have done it a long time ago.

      Inspiration is found in strange places, but I didn?t go home and shave the rest of my head. I just thought that Charlotte should give her folically challenged chorus members a special number. I get goose bumps at the idea of a front-page Ledger picture with nine bald guys taking a bow.

      (Jeff Wilson is publisher of The Fairfield Ledger.)