Tony Night

Mark is watching the Tony Awards right now. I was watching for a little while, but I wasn't that into it. I kept waiting for something meaty to come on. I think I lost interest when they did that number from Mean Girls. I needed something better, like what I learned in grade school.

Back at Saint George Grade School we had a nun who taught us religious hymns, in Latin. This only happened in the springtime when we would prepare for the May Procession. Learning to sing songs in a strange language wasn't always much fun, other than the fact it got us out of the classroom. We would practice down in the school basement which had some weird acoustics. Apparently the nun who was teaching us to sing, I can't remember which nun it was, Monica or Frances, was also tired of hearing those Latin hymns. Because at one point she herded us into the school boiler room and started to teach us songs from the musical, Oklahoma. For about a week we learned the song Oklahoma, along with Surrey With the Fringe on Top, and Oh What a Beautiful Morning. Now that was much more enjoyable than singing Latin songs phonetically. I especially liked singing Oklahoma! It was a rousing song that we could really get into.

♫"OooooooOklahoma, where the wind comes sweeping down the plain!"♫

We got to sing, "Yeeow! A-yip-i-o-e-ay!" So much more fun than "Macula non est in te." To this day I have no idea what the hell we were singing about in Latin. Anyway, we went down to that boiler room for a whole week and learned those songs from the Broadway musical, Oklahoma! and to this day I break out into song every time that state is mentioned. I seem to remember we all sounded great back then, good enough to be on stage. A bunch of fifth graders singing our asses off in the school boiler room. The nun seemed happy with it all. Of course that hissing, humming boiler right next to us might have contributed by drowning out some of the rough spots.