Music and Me-Part 5

SUNDAY MEMORIES

I remember being in church choirs all my life long.  From the time I was just a small child (in the children’ choir) through the Sanctuary or Adult choir in my home church.  I even remember helping out with the children’s choir after I aged out of the youth choir.  And I do mean just helping out – again, I wasn’t really able to really lead those children.

I don’t really have any pictures of choirs I was part of in my early years, except this one of the entire choir from the First Baptist Church, Albuquerque, New Mexico.

I’m not in the group of small children in the white robes, but I am in the row of a little older children.  And my older brother, Bill, is in that picture as well.  Looking at the picture, he is in the third row from the top, on the right hand, second person in.  I don’t know whether or not Bill was ever in any other choirs, until he and DiVoran moved to Titusville, Florida, and joined their church there.  I know they were both in several of the church choirs there.

And here is a picture of the group of Officer’s Wives Singers at Lackland AFB in San Antonio, Texas in 1973.

I remember singing with that group, and I remember that lovely blue dress.  We were performing at the Base Chapel here, and it was a Christmas program.  We took that program – with taped accompaniment – to the San Antonio River Walk one evening.  We rode up and down the river on one of the tour boats, singing, for about one hour.  It was such fun!  But an interesting event came from that.  We kept seeing a threesome sitting at one of the restaurants along the way.  They would always wave to us, and the older gentleman would “tip” his hat to us.  As we were finishing up, they called for us to join them for a drink.  Well, I don’t “drink,” but I thought it would be fun to visit with them.  So a group of about five of us did just that.  Turns out, they were actors from Austin, who had come down to show off the River Walk.  It also turns out that the older gentleman was Hans Conried!  Movie actor (Uncle Tonoose on the Danny Thomas show) and voice of the mirror in “Snow White” as well as George Darling and Captain Hook in the Disney movies.  WOW!!  What a privilege to meet him.

While I don’t have a picture of the Officer’s Wives singing group I sang with while at Tyndall AFB, Florida (Panama City), I do remember singing with them.  We performed at many functions around the base, as well as throughout the city.  My fondest memory of that group was a Christmas program we did at the Base Chapel.  I was singing a solo (as I remember, it was I Wonder As I Wander), and I looked down at the audience to see our five-year-old Janet watching me in open-mouth amazement!  I’m not sure she had heard me sing before!

As just a side-note here – As I was riding home from one of our performances at Tyndall AFB, the lady I was riding with asked me, “would you like to be bad?”  I said, “What do you have in mind?”  And she suggested that we stop at the Dairy Queen and get a banana split.  Well, never having had one before, I was all game for it!  So we did – and I developed my of love for banana splits from that point on!  At least from DQ!  I’ve had others that use the “Neopolitan” ice cream, and it’s just NOT the same!  DQ every time for me!

~~~~~~~~~~To Be Continued~~~~~~~~~~

Judy is living in Central Florida with her retired U.S. Air Force husband of 50+ years. Born in Dallas, Texas, she grew up in the Southwestern United States.She met her husband at their church, where he was attending the university in her town. After college and seminary, he entered the Air Force, and their adventures began.They lived in eight of our United States, and spent six years in Europe, where their oldest daughter was born. She was a stay-at-home mom for many years .

  Judy has always been involved with music, both playing the piano and singing. Always interested in exercise, she was an aerobic dancing instructor, as well as a piano teacher for many years, and continues to faithfully exercise at home.

After moving to Central Florida, she served as a church secretary for nearly nine years.Her main hobby at this point in time is scanning pictures and 35mm slides into the computer. She also enjoys scrapbooking.She and her husband have two married daughters and four grandchildren, including grandtwins as well as a great-grandson. She and her husband enjoy the Disney parks as often as possible.

Tags: Choir memories