Page 15 - MLD Book

well. Salary was never a Calvary feature of generosity but rather of verbal appreciation! Until the present, of course!
Also in 1980, Elizabeth Dosker, who lived at the 800 across the street, as did a number of Calvary parishioners, came to me wanting to give some money for music in memory of her husband, Cornelius Dosker. We hit upon the idea of the Trompette en Chamade! Gottfried Reck of Steiner-Reck Organs, was able to procure one for us, and it was dedicated in 1980. It is an example of an organ stop that blends in beautifully with a full ensemble and does not blow you away with loudness. It is especially useful for wedding processionals, and even non-musical brides are grateful because it saves hiring a live trumpeter!
Things were going along well, especially with music, even with the minor and major traumas with the trial prayer book. Under Fr. Lou, we had rather seamlessly transitioned to traditional language Eucharist every Sunday, but now we had another challenge. This trial book was mandated to trial in every parish, and most obliged. Calvary people called it the
GREEN BOOK and I remember one overzealous opponent of that book loaded them all up in a garbage can one day and tried to get rid of them! (That didn’t work, obviously!) Lots of battles ensued as to whether to use rite one or rite two, and it has taken years to resolve that, but we survived. Hiding the GREEN BOOK in the basement didn’t work, but that brings to mind that there were, and still are, various creatures hiding there. To this day, when large flies appear upstairs, we know that something else has died down there. There were colonies of cats that lived there, and they were perpetuated by Allen Watson, who fed them religiously every day. One Sunday during the service, the cats in the basement got into a terrific fight, and their shrieking came up through the heating grate behind the organ console. It was a sound not to be believed. That of course set off the church brass, and the vestry
proceeded to have all the outside holes plugged up and called an exterminator. A very angry and sad Allen Watson left Calvary, never to return! So did the cats. They have now been replaced by raccoons and possums, who somehow wiggle themselves inside. Recently one day when I was carrying trash for the outside, I was scared by a large raccoon poised on the basement steps, who bared teeth and looked as if I were the intruder. I was the one who ran!
One big happening in 1980 that indirectly affected Calvary because finally Melvin didn’t have to teach all his students at Calvary, and that was the dedication of a new Music School building at U of L. Not only was there now a magnificent concert organ, but he had his own studio with a three manual Steiner-Reck organ! Note Maria and Michelle as wallflowers!
In spite of cats and prayer books, things continued to go along extremely well but then the bubble burst, we thought, when late in 1980, Lou Hemmers received a call to Trinity Episcopal Church in Redlands, California. People were mostly very sad, although a few were not.