“SING, OR GET OUT!”

 

From Linda Lee Greene Author/Artist

Sadie was a single woman, and she had been single for a lot longer than she had been not-single. There was a husband way back in her youth, and three other men who came close to landing her in their marriage bed—nevertheless, Sadie had remained single. She had lived alone for the biggest part of her 85 years, and it suited her. Whether contentment with it came naturally or as an adaptation to her circumstances, Sadie didn’t know, and what’s more, she didn’t stew over it. A fretful mind had been a troublesome quality of her youth that she had got the better of with time.

          It came to pass that Sadie could no longer live alone, however. She could move in with her son or her daughter. In both cases, she would have a room of her own and the rest of the time would live in the midst of their noisy lives. Sadie opted instead to take a quiet and private one-bedroom apartment in an assisted living facility for seniors such as herself. It was just the right fit for the independent-minded and self-sufficient Sadie.  

Adjustment to her new surroundings came easily and quickly to Sadie. Course-correcting was another skill she had mastered over the years. One of her favorite mottos was that by not allowing endings to occur, we don’t allow beginnings to form. She looked for opportunities within the structure of her new home to fill her time and to make friends. Toward that end, she joined a group that advertised itself as the Mid-Ohio Senior Chorus that met twice weekly in the recreation room of the facility. The chorus’s current agenda was to rehearse a selection of Christmas Carols as part of a holiday program for the entertainment of the residents and their guests. The show was scheduled to take place on the eve of Christmas Eve that year.

At her first meeting, Sadie slid into the only empty chair at a long table nestled among a total of three long tables in the rec room. Elder women of various descriptions occupied every other chair of two of the tables. The third table was crowded with elder men, two of whom Sadie knew to be single like herself. The other six men were married to six of the women in the group. A few minutes later, a quavering female voice broke into a trilling rendition of ‘Joy to the World’ and immediately was joined by a unison of female voices. The men took no notice of the singing that was underway around them, and they continued in their talking and joking among themselves, a noisy state of affairs that drowned-out the female voices. At the completion of the song, Sadie bent to the ear of the woman seated to the left of her and asked if the men were there to sing in the chorus. The woman replied that she didn’t know for sure.

Sadie’s hackles began to rise like an angry junk yard dog’s. She pulled to her feet at the precise moment the first words in a wobbly female voice took flight in the next song on the itinerary. The voice stopped. Along with Sadie’s independence had come a penchant toward opening her mouth and speaking her mind. “Gentlemen!” Sadie piped up. “Are you here to join in the singing or not?! And if not, then I suggest that you either decide to sing or get out!”

A deathly hush descended on the room. All eyes clamped on Sadie’s ramrod figure. Presently the women began to twitter meekly among themselves and the men’s necks swelled and their faces reddened in disdain for the mouthy woman who had the audacity to denigrate their dominion over that and any and all other proceedings. But soon, the atmosphere began to change. Sadie’s friend Sylvia rose to her feet and said, “Yes, Gentlemen! If you aren’t going to sing, then get out!” Chairs scraped loudly and some toppled over as all the women in the room found their feet. “Sing, or get out!” rang through the space as female voice after female voice joined in the mantra.

Stunned red faces blanched white and Adam’s apples in deflated male necks bounced up and down like loose ping pong balls. Two of the men wrestled to their feet in ready to vacate the room. Neighboring burly hands reached out and pushed them back down in their chairs. Tension coiled to near snapping. The anxious moments ticked by, and then at the furthest end of the men’s table, a melodic baritone gave forth: “Silent night, holy night, star so high, shining bright….”

All twenty-four members of the Mid-Ohio Senior Chorus struggled to their feet and the room filled then with the wondrous harmony of female and male voices come together in a common cause.

Enjoy! And Happy Holidays.©

***

The above story is a fleshed-out reenactment of a dream I had last night. -Linda Lee Greene

Books by Linda Lee Greene are available for purchase on Amazon.

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