At the VFW hall on a damp Wednesday night,
Ma sings tenor with the gals and the guys,
with approximately 1,800 years of barbershop
harmony in their hearts.

They sing the oldies—the real oldies—
for the cowboy-themed recital:
“Home on the Range,” “Don’t Fence Me In,”
“Back in the Saddle Again,” and, of course,
“I’m an Old Cowhand.”

With some twists and a nod to local history,
the wild Irish rose morphs into the beautiful
Roseville rose (after “the 39th largest city in California,”
notes the narrator). And Roger with his Magic Rope
(the father of one of my high school percussion
buddies) spins his lariat for the admiring audience
of mostly family members ready with camera
phones, even if, Roger says, he can no longer hop
through the circling loop,

My mother, the slight one with the blaze
of white hair, stands tall at the end of the row
of ladies, singing out her tenor part
to “Country Roads” with a substitution:
“California, mountain mama, take me home,
country roads.”

I watch from my place near the back, thinking,
in the inimitable words of Harold Hill,
“Singing is just sustained talking,” offering
a little prayer to the gods of harmony:

Please, you daddies who sang bass,
you mamas who sang tenor, let my mama
keep singing till she sails off to join that big
chorus in the sky. And please let her find her
dearest Sweet Adeline

buddies who’ve gone
before her standing tall on the risers, in
fringed flapper dresses and an abundance
of blue eye shadow, singing their heavenly
hearts out:

How can there be any sin in sincere
Where is the good in goodbye?
Tell me what can be fair in farewell, dear
While one single star shines above

How can there be any sin in sincere?
Aren’t we sincerely in love?
Oh, we’re in love!

•••

•••

The Buffalo Bills sing “Sincere” in “The Music Man” (1962 movie starring Robert Preston as Harold Hill):