Hunting For Warmth

As we go through our daily lives, we often encounter some very unique people. It is almost as if they were written into the narrative of our lives to enrich and entertain. I recently had an experience with another one of these characters. He's not a stranger though, he's been around for quite a while. He sings in the choir at my church in Birmingham. He's an older man with a slight hump in his back that makes him appear to stoop over. He comes off as smug, quiet, and reserved. I'm not sure I've ever heard him say much. His defining characteristic, however, is his halitosis. I mean, it's bad. Standing within a few feet of him, one is overpowered with the musty, dank smell of his breath. Standing next to him in the choir loft for an entire church service is quite a challenge and requires careful timing of my own respiration. I digress.

Another of my friends sang in the adult choir at church since I can remember and has had much more interaction with this character. On one occasion, my friend met Frank in the robing room behind the sanctuary. Frank was wearing a down vest of bright orange. "Going hunting Frank?" my friend asked. "Hunting for warmth..." Frank said, his acrid mouth slowly massaging each syllable. It was one of those phrases that has continued in the near-daily speech of my friends and I.

**Warning: Music nerd content to follow. Musically squeamish should look away.***
So I sang in the adult choir this past Sunday at my church back home. Being the Sunday after a holiday, the congregation and the choir were slim. After I finished robing up, I walked into the choir room and took my place... right beside Frank. I knew what I was getting myself into, but the choir director asked me to sing tenor and my undying devotion to her won over. We finished rehearsing and walked out into the sanctuary to take our place at the rear of the church for the choral introit. We were about to sing "O Come O Come Emmanuel". We were only going to sing the first verse of the hymn and then process down the aisle and into the choir loft singing another hymn. "O Come O Come Emmanuel" is in a minor key, which means that the third scale degree is a half step lower. This gives minor keys their sad, somber tonality. At the end of the hymn, the tenors (of which Frank and I were a part) had the third. As we slowed slightly at the final cadence I heard a sound come from Frank that was not authorized by the music. Frank had pulled a Picardy third! The wily old fox! A Picardy third is a musical device in which the final chord is made major instead of minor by raising the third a half step. It can give a piece in a minor key a surprisingly uplifting ending. I adjusted midcourse and went with it, singing the major third rather than the minor. After the choir had been cut off, I glanced over at Frank. With a twinkle in his eye and a slight upturned smile, he simply shrugged his shoulders as if to say "I still got a few tricks up my sleeve, whipper snapper."