Some of my fondest memories were when a group of people would gather around a piano and sing old hymns and gospel songs. No song books, just our memories of the amazing songs that had touched our lives over the years. I'm not sure if my "song of the morning" was ever sung at one of these sessions but its hard for me to think it wasn't.
In the late 80's, several of my office workers would gather at Gerald's house for chicken wing night. Now this would happen quite regularly, probably at least once a month. Gerald could cook some of the best chicken wings you ever ate and all of the ladies would bring a dish and we would have a feast. But it didn't long before Bobby would be sitting at piano and begin playing songs by ear and the crowd would begin to sing. Gerald had a saying, "If you can sing you can't and if you can't sing you can". Well I guess none of us could sing because we all chimed in and made a joyful noise. We had Baptists, Methodists, Lutherans and I'm not sure what else. None of us had ever attended church together (unless it was a funeral or wedding) but it was awesome to stand with my coworkers, lifting our voices and singing songs that we loved. It was an amazing time and memories that I'll never forget. Time and distance has kept my old friends from singing around the piano again, but one thing for sure, time and distance will not make the love, friendships and memories go away.
As I'm typing this message, other times of singing around a piano comes to mind, at someone's home after Sunday lunch, after a nightly church service and no one was eager to go home and others, but I'll save those stories for another time if God blesses with me with a song.
Again, I don't have a specific memory at Gerald's house of us singing "The Dearest Friend I Ever Had" , but it is representative of the type songs we would try to sing. I'm glad Gerald had the rule "if you can't sing you can" as I sure enjoyed singing!
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