Singing In My Baritone Voice

When I go over to the Citizens’ Voice newspaper at night to pick up my copies for the morning radio program I do for the visually impaired, I serenade the workers.

Specifically, I do selections from the great Broadway composers as would be performed by the best of singers. Thomas Hampson, for instance, the great bass-baritone whose Broadway disc I own. As I imitate his style, my voice grows ever stronger, more resonate and resounds throughout the room.

Pity they can’t hear me above the roar of the press. Even in the mailing room, where the papers are put together with their inserts whooshing into them as they are conveyed down a belt with alarm bells sounding and the general atmosphere of a boiler room and a three-alarm fire, I am little noticed nor long remembered.

Vastly unappreciated, I pick up my papers and leave, hoping that another night it will be quiet and they will be struck dumb by the sheer power of what comes forth from this famous (Rockport MA Community Chorus) section (first or second tenor, as required) experienced (two seasons) vocalist (they already had a pianist).

Yes, Virginia, there is a vocalist among us. A singer of power and might. A thousand years from now, Virginia, nay, ten times ten thousand years from now, he will continue to make glad the heart of newspaper printers and mailing room assemblers. Their progeny will say, “Who was that guy who moved his lips amid all the noise?”