Great minds think alike, they say. We’ll here’s a case where a barely average one (the Grunge) was thinking along the same lines as a smart one. This from Fred Whitmer ’69 the same day I was working on the blog entry for the Glee Club!
“Seeing your blog about Freshman Saturday reminded me that in my day it was Freshman Sunday. That’s a day I’ll never forget. I had intended to use my college days without indulging in all the musical stuff that I had in high school, but as I sat in the chapel, awaiting the opening ceremony with the organ grinding out some Bach-like sonorities, suddenly, and dramatically, the now-familiar-but-then-unknown chromatic intro blared out, the Glee Club burst through a side door on the stage and the whole place rose up to the rapid incantation of “From the hills of Maine….” I was hooked. By the end of the week, Mitchum had held auditions; I was invited and accepted the invitation to be a member of the Wabash Glee Club. Four years later, when, to my utter surprise I got the Outstanding Glee Club graduating Senior award, I was prouder of that than of my Phi Beta Kappa key. The former meant more to me because it was from my colleagues. The latter has been more useful, of course, but that’s the way it is. And it does say something that the Glee Club Reunion is the only one I’ve ever attended.”
