Calamitous—That's the Word for It
A SHORT SHORT STORY OF THE GLEE CLUB'S EVENTFULAND FATED TRIP DURING SPRING VACATIONAs Told to the Montclair Audience
DON COBLEIGH received a torrential burst of applause at the Montclair Athletic Club on the conclusion of his glee club's first group of songs. There was not merely handclapping, but shrieks and loud laughing which actually amounted to wailing; and the reason for all this gusto (of course some of it was for the Glee Club's performance, which was brilliant) was that Don Cobleigh had just pushed the piano off the stage. Shoved it bodily to the edge so that it toppled over "kerplunk" as gracefully as you could want. Then came the twanging of broken strings, the smell of kindling, a torrential burst of laughter, and an indescribable expression on Don's face.
"Well, I expected it to happen," he said.
Can you imagine that? Not enough to just break up their piano into splinters of wood, but then to clap his hands together like a job well done, and say openly: Well, I expected it to happen!"—like another line in the Glee Club's program, "Iplanned it that way."
He furtively shouldered his tailcoat into place, stepped back from the edge of the platform for confidence, and continued something like this,
You see, our trip has been a calamitous one from the very start. And it was more
than I could hope for that we should get through our Montclair concert without mishap. A glee club concert tour with our misfortunes is ludicrous. Even before we left Hanover two of our first basses were in Dick's House for a week with the measles.
"When we left Syracuse for Cleveland next morning after our concert there Bob Lang came up to me with a rhyme:
I've searched the car in vain For the two second basses who've missed the train.
Well, two second basses is quite a chunk out of our club, but the utter irony of this situation was that these two stragglers were carrying a third second bass's dress clothes in their suit cases. He had to rent clothes from an agency in Cleveland.
"Another fellow came down with the measles in Cleveland and we left him in the hospital there for a week. In Chicago one of the boys was in an automobile crackup and got a broken collar bone, and in Milwaukee the programs hadn't been printed, so we had-to sing without any.
"In one of our skits four boys play some tunes on bottles filled with water. I'll let you imagine what it sounded like after someone had taken a drink out of one of them.
"We ran into a blizzard in Elkhart, Indiana, and saw more snow there than there's been in Hanover all winter. The train was an hour and a half late in Indianapolis, and three boys had to borrow dress clothing there because they had lost their suitcases some place en route.
"Well, I can't tell you all of the minor calamities that befell us, because the boys kept most of them from me after the first few days. I never can forget seeing one first bass singing in the front row in Cincinnati oblivious to the fact that he was wearing no waistcoat and his shirt tail was out, nor the drop in pitch on one song in Pittsburgh. We kept the audience in Indianapolis waiting because of the late train, and our club's manager, John Huck, had to go to Chicago for his brother's wedding at the beginning of our trip, so all this without a manager!
"And now this .. . he pointed down woefully at the rent piano—a mass of broken strings, mahogany, and a keyboard that looked like a six or seven year old's truant teeth.
"Well, we had a lot of fun, and made a lot of new friends."
