No Contest

Remember these lines from the Coke commercial, in the early ‘70s?

“I’d like to buy the world a home and furnish it with love,
Grow apple trees and honey bees, and snow white turtle doves.
I’d like to teach the world to sing in perfect harmony,
I’d like to buy the world a Coke and keep it company . . . ”

I wish I could sing in harmony (or otherwise), and so does the rest of the world. I am a terrible singer.

I was one of those kids who loved singing in church. I sang enthusiastically, loudly, off-key, out of tune and out of sync.

No one said anything to me, of course. I was just a kid. And I was where I was supposed to be – in church. Everyone just smiled, and prayed that somehow I’d grow out of it.

Didn’t happen. They just suffered, Sunday after Sunday after Sunday. Eventually, their prayers were answered in a different manner: we moved away.

Remember the TV show All in the Family, with Archie and Edith singing the opening song? Edith’s high notes were . . . screechingly memorable, weren’t they?

“Boy the way Glen Miller played, songs that made the hit parade,
guys like us we had it made, those were the days,
and you know where you were then, girls were girls and men were men,
mister we could use a man like Herbert Hoover again,
didn’t need no welfare states, everybody pulled his weight,
gee our old Lasalle ran great, those were the days!”

Well, if Edith Bunker and I were in a singing competition – and we were the only 2 people entered – it would be no contest: Edith would win and the judges wouldn’t even award me 2nd place. They’d just slink away while I was singing.

Okay, all together now, and turn up the volume loud enough to drown out my voice:

“I’d like to buy the world a home and furnish it with love,
Grow apple trees and honey bees, and snow white turtle doves.
I’d like to teach the world to sing in perfect harmony,
I’d like to buy the world a Coke and keep it company . . . ”