I am now in Sacramento, California, where I have been with my siblings and nieces to celebrate the marriage of my niece, Nancy Au to Matthew LePage. It was an outdoor wedding where the weather could not have been more perfect. Not too hot and not too cool.

So it was some excitement that during the reception, I received this photo from former organ student Joey Fala, now Organ Scholar of Duke University.

You see, I would never have guessed that these two people would meet: the woman that Joey is pictured with is Diane Rose Amidon, my former classmate from the USC School of Music. After I graduated from the University of Southern California and then Westminster Choir College, I moved to Hawaii and reunited with Diane, who was by then the soprano soloist in the Lutheran Church of Honolulu. That was 40 years ago!

In fact, the year 1977 saw three weddings among the choir members within the space of a couple of months. Sandra Wagner, alto, married Joel Seavey in May. Then Diane Rose, soprano, married tenor David Amidon. I played the organ for Dave and Diane ‘s wedding. A few weeks later, I married LCH’s organist, who was Carl Crosier.

Joey played Evensong at Duke University tonight in which there was a reception afterwards. Joey texted me: There was a donation of a ton of organ music to the organ scholar by the wife of an organist who passed away: Witts. Today they had his family and friends come to evensong and she was among the guests.

When Joey was introduced as being from Hawaii, she came up to him and told him of her connection to the Crosiers and John McCreary!

My reaction to Joey was, “Wow! Small world!”

I wrote about Dave and Diane Amidon previously: “Called to ministry out of the choir”— they both went to seminary and became pastors. Now they have moved on to other careers, and are grandparents!