Show I Mini sketches of maxi living r i The singing corner By HAL GREA GREAVES YES Two or three years ago my I sisters Hazel and Amy both bothI bothof bothof I I of whom died In 1969 told me I about a custom they practiced when Hazel was a young lady I i three of my brothers were young men and Amy was a little girl The James Green family lived where Mrs Green lives now across the road east from our home on Second South and Maln- Maln where Bud and Winona now live The Tom Peterson family lived across the road south from the Greens and the John Bailey Balley family lived east of the Peter Peter- sons I hope all my facts are correct All four lour families were singing families and occasionally on a warm summer summer summer sum sum- mer night one of the families would go out on the front porch and sing a song or two Then one of the other families would come out ant take their turn singing a song or two All AU four families might thus get Into the act And so It might go for the best part of a summer night each family taking Its turn and sometimes all of them joinIng joining joining join join- ing together for tor some community community community com com- singing It Is easy to romanticize such a scene and imagine that some of those country voices were truly fine voices that might have made a mark in society if only they had not been hidden treasures In a way reminiscent of the gems and flowers of ot Grays Gray's Elegy Full many a gem of purest ray serene The dark unfathomed caves of ocean bear Full many a flower is born to blush unseen And waste its sweetness on the desert air In deed some of those voices were fine voices as many of the timers old-timers now in Ephraim will testify testily All of the Peterson peterS n girls could sing well and everyone everyone everyone every every- one still living In Ephraim must have listened fairly recently to Montell Green I can still re recall recall recall re- re call seeing the handwriting of Hazels Hazel's music teacher teacher later later In Salt Lake City on city on some of her sheet music Gallie Curci Hall It read Some of the timers old-timers will recall that Madame Madame Madame Mad Mad- ame Galli Galli-Curci was a great operatic soprano of the early part of this century and some will recall that Hazels Hazel's married name was Hall And I remember remember remember ber clearly that I recel received ved some of my training In music appreciation appreciation appreciation from Montell Green For when Montell and I were young boys Jim Green bought a player-piano player one of those old massive machines that made music out of perforated rolls of paper that were propelled around a cylinder by some kind of power Montell would go into the Green parlor play the songs that were popular in the early learn the words to the songs and sing them to the accompaniment ment of orthe the piano I would sl sit on our front porch and wish we had a player- player piano The only piano we had was the one I had to PRACTICE in preparation for tor a lesson which my father bribed me to take from LaVar Jenson or Apollo Hanson I didn't care much for that piano even though I did like to sing As a young boy I did my singIng singing singing sing sing- ing out In the fields in the bathroom or in the corral When I sang In the corral some of our neighbors couldn't help listening to me for I sang loud if not good But Butone Butone Butone one of my choice recollections of my boyhood In Ephraim Is that I could sing to the cows while milking them with all the power lung-power I could command com com- mand and mand and nobody seemed tot to t think h Ink there was anything funny or queer about It One of our cows may have objected though for she usually tried to put her right hind foot Inthe in inthe inthe the milk bucket or kick me off the stool or wrap her taU tall around my ears We named her Strychnine e. e Yet I remember that one day Anthony Frost who lived half half- block a-block south of our home and was several years older than I met me on the street and said cheerfully and kindly Well Halbert youre you're quite a a. singer Im I'm not quite sure what J he meant There must have been several rJ r J singing neighborhoods in Ephraim Eph- Eph I raim during the early decades J of this century for they were I I singing decades And there are rf SJ many fine singers there now r Are there any singing neighborhoods neighbor neighbor- I II e hoods J t II |