I recently attended my high school reunion—the 50th anniversary reunion of Burbank High School’s Class of 1968 , where the showing of a reunion video was one of the highlights of the weekend. The theme was “Back to Burbank,” and was based on the movie “Back to the Future” with the clock in the DeLorean car being set back to June 15, 1968, the date of our graduation. Accompanied by snippets of 60s music and scenes of old town Burbank, all of our senior graduation photos were shown in addition to pages from our school year book. The net effect was to create a wave of nostalgia and sentimentality, a look back to “the good ol’ days,” the carefree days of our youth.

However, it was not just a matter of “rewinding the tape”—reliving the past—because the photos of the classmates who had died were marked by black ribbons. (90 of my classmates have died since we graduated.) The high school has been completely remodeled and looks nothing like the school we attended fifty years ago. Plus, we classmates have all changed—we’re older, wiser, but perhaps heavier, grayer, and in the case of men, balder. I think one of the funniest comics I found was this one:

All of this means, “You cannot go home again” — you cannot recover the past.

And yet …

This past weekend, and for the next two Sundays, I am playing the organ for Lorraine Yamamoto at the Church of Holy Nativity—the site of my first church job in Hawaii 45 years ago! Yes, it was the same exterior building, but the interior is slightly different, there was another organ, and of course, the people are all different.

Back in 1973, when I was initially hired as the organist, and later became organist/director, there was only a two-manual Rodgers electronic organ, and Father Charles Crane was the rector. In those days, I remembered that they had a three-hour Good Friday service, and Father Crane preached seven sermons on the Seven Words from the Cross!

Yesterday, Father Christopher Bridges, curate, introduced me in the service, but announced it was my very first church job. Correction, it was my very first church job in Hawaii—my very first church job was at Westminster Presbyterian Church in Burbank, when I was 15 years old. I was at Holy Nativity for 2-1/2 years from 1973-1976 when I resigned to spend more time to play the Beckerath organ at the Lutheran Church of Honolulu (1975).

Also Father Bridges probably did not know that my late husband, Carl Crosier, served as the consultant for the Holy Nativity organ committee which selected the Casavant Frères Organ (1986). The unusual shape of the organ case is due to the fact that people on the committee did not want to cover up the stained glass windows in the front of the church, even though they are rather nondescript and not remarkable. This meant that all the pipes had to be crammed into a very tight space, making it difficult to do organ maintenance.

When I came to practice last Monday, there were two noticeable ciphers (air leaks) on the Trompette and the 2-2/3 Nazard and the combination action was frozen. Thank goodness, the organ technician came and fixed the ciphers, as well as the combination action.

I am happy to report that all went well at both 7:30 and 9:30 am services yesterday! I did think back to those services that I played at Holy Nativity forty-five years ago: I’m older, wiser, and have the benefit of forty-five more years of organ playing.

A piece of cake!