Music to his ears

When it comes to Grandpa, music naturally comes to mind. When I think about his love of music and song, the stories are endless. Where do I start? The church pipe organ he painstakingly helped pick out and assemble. No, no, his song at my sister’s wedding—the same song, sung by him, echoed from the same church rafters for my parent’s wedding. Or what about his grandpa Max’s replica Antonius Stradivarius violin. Oh, the brass band would be good. And I can’t leave out the barbershop quartet!

Grandpa singing at my sister's wedding

It's best to let him put his love to words: 

I loved music, and put a lot of church hymns to memory. I was able to sing multiple parts in choir—bass and tenor. In the male chorus, I would sing first tenor and second tenor. I was also blessed with the natural ability to read music. A group of us drove to Granger once a week to study steel guitar, which Calvin Buchhorn still plays, among other instruments. Calvin also played in the Brass Band.

In those early years, I was so very proud of my dad. My daddy played clarinet in the church band, also known as the Zion Lutheran Church Brass Band. It was a thrill to see and hear him play the clarinet polka in accompaniment by the church band. I can still put him there on a bunch of trees with a platform about a foot and a half off the ground. There were approximately twenty eight players. When daddy would start off, you never knew when it was comin’. The fingering was unreal. That’s when I decided I knew why he was such a good mechanic—he could do everything the right way with his fingers, including music. In later years, after I was out of high school, my dad, along with my brother and I, played in that band and toured Central Texas during the summers at school picnics.

I’ve been privileged to experience my grandpa’s awe at a good song. This past Easter weekend, he sang in a Good Friday Cantata service. We listened to the somber songs for days before, for inspiration and entertainment. But it couldn’t compare to the live show that night. His strong voice also provided the narration for the service. Several weeks later, my sister and I went along to hear his Cantata choir perform alongside ten others. After each choir had performed, the ten of them stood together and sang one final song. When it was finished, I looked at him. He had tears running down his cheeks and he looked up at me and said, “That was beautiful. Imagine. That’s a small glimpse of what heaven will be like—‘singing him and praising’.”