The Fellowship Bus: Singing Through the Evening
By Susan Saulny
After the movie, somewhere in Ohio, on the turnpike headed toward Pennsylvania, Mr. Jackson, the driver/entertainer, was explaining why patchy fog is worse than dense fog (”because at least you know what to expect to see in dense fog: nothing!”)
There was no fog tonight, though. The sky is dark but clear. The women in the back of the bus have sent a message to the front that they are cold. Father Len Dubi, a Roman Catholic priest, had some advice for them: “Hold each other! We need to practice sharing body heat for the streets of Washington.”
More seriously, Rev. Dubi, who remembers Mr. Obama from his earliest days as a community organizer, asked passengers to step forward and share their thoughts, nine hours into this trip.
“My name is Katie Hubbart and I’m a sharecropper’s daughter from the state of Mississippi,” one woman said. “I worked for Barack on three elections, and I’m so happy to be here.”
Another woman, Maribeth Sauer, who lives in the suburbs of Chicago, said, “I’m not sure why I’m here, but I just couldn’t stay home.”
Ms. Sauer, a retired financial aid advisor at a university, said she remembered her grandmother telling her, as a child, that their family owned slaves in Missouri before the Civil War.
“To me, it feels like years of rain have finally ended and the sun is shining through,” she said.
Ms. Sauer had brought copies of the lyrics to some popular patriotic songs on the bus, and now was a good time to spread the music around, she said.
So began several rousing renditions of “America the Beautiful,” “The Battle Hymn of the Republic,” and “My Country Tis of Thee,” among other classics.
Rev. Dubi was the lead male vocal on the microphone, yelling: “Women! Now men, chorus! Now march, march, march!”
People stomped their feet. Harmonies emerged. Who knew there were so many booming baritones on board?
Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord;
He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored.
“I don’t know about you,” Rev. Dubi told the bus, “but the president-elect’s victory has made these songs even more dynamic and real to me. America is a process, always expanding and growing.”
And the music went on.
And the microphone made the rounds.
“I challenge and urge each one of us not to ask what Mr. Obama can do for us, but what we can do to help make his programs a success,” said Rev. Archie Graham, a former civil rights advocate who leads a small church just south of Chicago.
This land is your land, this land is my land
From California, to the New York Island
From the redwood forest, to the gulf stream waters
This land was made for you and me
“In 1860, my great-grandfather shook hands with Abraham Lincoln,” said Ed Vockell, who is traveling with his wife, Alice. “I figure I’m completing the cycle here.”
The Vockells talked about how they got to sit five rows behind Mr. Obama at one of his rallies in northern Indiana during the campaign. Yes, they got to shake his hand.
“I can’t tell you how special that felt,” Mrs. Vockell said.
Rev. Dubi added: “It makes you proud to be an American, doesn’t it? Why don’t we sing ‘The Star Spangled Banner?’”
And they did.
The singing stopped only at dinnertime, which was a 20-minute break at McDonalds. It was already crowded. Guess who was there? Another busload of people on their way to the inauguration.
http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/01/19/the-fellowship-bus-singing-through-the-evening/
Printer-friendly format
Email this thread to a friend
Bookmark this thread
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
