On Father’s Day: Thanks, Dad!

I can’t believe I flunked the audition to get into the 6th grade chorus. Mrs. Wood went around the room listening to us sing, and I guess I wasn’t loud enough.

My father, a part-time opera singer, wouldn’t stand for it. He went to school and talked her into taking me. We sang at Christmas—I think they still did  religious Christmas carols in 1952

 I didn’t sing much again until I retired at age 67, inspired by my daughter’s high school chorus. I started with a church choir, then a gospel choir and then moved my way up to the prestigious City Choir of Washington and the Washington Men’s Camerata.

I was looking for some advanced choral music to practice with for the Camerata audition, when I came across my father’s choral books in a box that I received when he died. I carefully opened the box and thumbed through the books of songs, many of which I had heard him sing around the house. Often the high notes for tenors were accented by profanity when he couldn’t hit them. I tried the high notes and found that I could! I took out some of the dusty music and practiced with it as it brought back memories.

 

I passed the audition this time.

Thanks, Dad.

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Most writers I know are notoriously bad at math.  In ninth grade, when I was struggling with algebra, my father went to see my teacher. On the last day of school, I was stunned to find that I actually got a B in the class. As I walked out the door, the teacher came up to me and whispered: “It was a gift!” Thanks, again, Dad!

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My father, Philip Doan, never understood what I did for a living. If I wanted to be a journalist, he thought he would have to buy a newspaper company, which he couldn’t afford.

But he finally figured it out. In my late 30s I took out a $10 bill and said, “That’s where I work.” It had a drawing of the Treasury building, where I was the AP correspondent. You could even see my window in the Treasury press room.

Man, was he impressed! He would take out $10 bills from his wallet and show them to his friends. “That’s where Mike works,” he said proudly.

When I moved on but lost another job, he said, “Why don’t you go back to that place where you were on the $10 bill?” Maybe I should have done that.

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It’s summertime, kids. Time to jump in the pool! Uh oh, there’s no water in it! There are no public swimming pools in Halifax County!

Sure, there are private pools around, including the one at the YMCA. But It sure would be neat if there was a way to reopen the pool at Staunton River State Park. The State Park System doesn’t have the money to repair the pool. How can we get it fixed?