I guess you could call me a morning person. This morning I woke up about 4:00 am, read all my emails and practiced my Spanish, then I decided to drive to the church and play the organ.

As you may recall, usually every Friday I record all the music for the Sunday in the week following. And so I did record my organ prelude, introit, postlude and three hymns last Friday. This week, however, when I played back the recordings, I was dismayed to hear the sound fading in and out of the video, sometimes resulting in a jarring jump in volume. Totally unacceptable!

After researching some probable causes online, I became convinced that the only solution would be to replace my nearly 4 year old iPhone. I have actually spent several months researching the various models, so yesterday I walked into the AT&T store and walked out with a brand new iPhone 12 Pro fifteen minutes later.

Driving to the church in the dark this morning reminded me of the old days, specifically 1985, which was the 300th anniversary of the birth of Johann Sebastian Bach. That was the year we presented ten different Bach concerts beginning with my memorized all-Bach organ recital on February 16, 1985. For 8 months I found myself getting up at 4 am every day to drive over the Pali to the church. By 5 am I was sitting at the organ and practicing before going to work at 8:00 am. After work, I went back to the church for more practice before heading for home about 6:00 pm.

In 1985 I was a young mother with a two year old. How did we do it, especially with me leaving the house at 4:30 am and not returning until 7:00 pm or later? The fact is that my husband, Carl Crosier, got our son up at a more reasonable hour and took him to the babysitter where he was not only fed breakfast, lunch and dinner, but was also bathed daily and had his clothes washed! After work, Carl picked him up and had dinner on the table by the time I got home at 7:00! I was able to eat dinner then put our son to bed, before doing the whole routine all over again the next day. Rinse, lather and repeat.

A standing room only crowd heard the Partita on Sei gegrüsset, Trio Sonata No. 3, Toccata and Fugue in F major, intermission, Prelude and Fugue in G major, Chorale Prelude on “Schmücke dich,” and Passacaglia and Fugue in C minor. No walk in the park, eh?

But you know who stole the show? It was 2-1/2 year Stephen Crosier who sat through the entire recital without moving a muscle or saying a word, quite a feat for a 2-year-old. He absolutely brought the house down when at the end of the concert, he toddled down the long center aisle and presented his mother (me!) with a large bouquet of yellow roses—all of it a surprise to the audience as well as to me!

Those were the days!