Last night the Grammy Awards were on, and although I didn’t watch a minute of it, a question came up this morning on the Trial Balloon blog which asked us, “If we were to receive a Grammy Award, or any award for that matter, who would we thank?”  In keeping with the theme of music, here is my answer:

I think I would say thanks to Sister Celine for taking so much time and using so much encouragement to coax a beautiful, almost Grammy-worthy sung Mass out of our highschool choir in 1967. At choir practice Sr Celine would say things like “OK you toads, pay attention now”, yet she did it with a sense of humor – and somehow when all was said and done, we sounded great. In fact, we were given a high mass to sing – 7:30 am on Easter. Not very many people attend a 7:30 mass, but we were excited about it.
The visiting priest  assigned to say early mass was not expecting any choir at all, so when we started singing as he approached the altar, he wheeled around, robes a’twirling, to see who was up there in the choir loft. After mass, he came up to the choir loft and met us on the stairs as were leaving the church. He had gracious words for all of us, and congratulated Sr. Celine on her fine work with us. Not exactly a Grammy, but certainly memorable for Sr. Celine and all of us toads.