The choir tour experience has changed a lot since we were in the choir. Being counselors gives us an interesting perspective, and we figured we would share how it used to be and HOW IT STILL SHOULD BE. [Editor’s Note: Some of this may or may not be slightly exaggerated. Or even way exaggerated. I’ll leave it to you to sort it out].
1) NO CELL PHONES! Nobody had one except that one rich kid and they carried an extra suitcase to lug it around. Everybody else had calling cards. We stood in line for HOURS at each church we slept in to call home.
2) HOTELS. We got one night at a hotel per tour. Only one. This 4 hotel nights thing is making kids way too soft. Hotel keys were keys. Real keys. With your room number. If a 7th grader lost it, their parent paid $25. With inflation that’s like, $217. In Canada it’s 57 cents.
Hotel Key
3) HOST HOMES. About half the nights we stayed in host homes. This was always fun because often the hosts would feed us or give a private tour of the city. Or you ended up with a crazy cat lady. We really miss this. The kids this year did get a taste of this as we actually had a host home night early in the tour. No crazy cat ladies though.
4) SLEEPING IN CHURCHES. Air mattresses didn’t really exist (except for the one Terry fashioned out of duct tape and a tarp). Also, in the old days (pre-safe sanctuaries), everybody slept in the same room, boys, girls & counselors. We had to entertain ourselves by playing with sticks and rocks (see “NO CELL PHONES”, above). Occasionally a church might have a gym, so we might get to play basketball. Ask Chris Whittington about the time he put a soccer ball through the window of a church.
Churches never had showers. If you were lucky they’d let you use the kitchen sink to wash your hair. #takethathealthdepartment Sometimes you put on your bathing suit and used a hose outside.
5) BUS RIDES – Everybody brought a collection of CDs (or cassette tapes) and a Walkman to listen to music (see “NO CELL PHONES”, above). The hardest decision was figuring out which CDs to take with you. AA batteries were a hot commodity…. So many batteries. There was no wifi or power at each seat like we have now. Instead of playing games on phones we used these ancient devices called playing cards and actually talked to each other. Ed Whittington used to bring fireballs for the whole bus. Sleeping on the bus floor was not uncommon. Amanda has been around long enough to remember the days of 1 bus. If you were late, collecting fines was no idle threat. You paid up and you were happy about it. #thomasdugginscollegefund .
Riding a bus for a week and a half gives you life wisdom: Nothing good ever happens in Iowa. It’s where busses go to get stuck in ditches. There was also that time back in the one bus days where we reenacted the tornado scene from “The Wizard of Oz”, only with buses. Traveling to Canada was much less of a hassle, pre -9/11. The border agents would basically come on the bus and wave to us, and we would be along our merry way to go sing to moose and drink maple syrup. In the old days, lunch stops had fewer options. McDonalds was mostly it for a lot of tours, especially heading out west. The whole choir would go through one restaurant.
6) CONCERTS – We sang 3 concerts every day. Girls got to wear blue calico rompers hand stitched lovingly by their mothers with panty hose and closed toe shoes. Boys wore 3 piece suits. Also, the sound system took up half the bus storage. None of this compact run it with an iPad stuff we have now. The front 2 seats were taken up by garment bags with starched uniforms. Spoiler alert. They still wrinkled. Speaking of wrinkles, that was remedied by travel irons. Let that sink in. We IRONED on choir tour.
Not a real choir tour outfit, but close.
Doug
Doug preparing to shower with a hose beside the church before the neighbors called the cops
Amanda
7) DESTINATIONS – At mount Rushmore there were only 3 presidents. They hadn’t yet built horse shoe falls at Niagara falls. The Grand Canyon was only the OK Canyon. The corn palace has not changed. The Corn Palace is and always will be. Corn without end. Amen. Amen.
8) TALENT SHOW – Talent show came about after a 6 night stretch of church nights and boredom. Again no cell phones. What happened at talent show actually stayed at talent shows and became the stuff of legend. Ask Gibson Gray about Herbert Weiner.
9) HEALTHCARE – Nurse Connie didn’t take us to the hospital. Like, not ever. You could be bleeding and missing a limb and she’d give you some raisins and tell you to walk it off. And you better still sing.
10) Kim and Mrs. Deb didn’t buy you water. You bought your own water or you went thirsty. And you better still sing.
11) Kim had a megaphone.
12) There was no google, GPS, or Yelp (see “NO CELL PHONES”, above). Kim packed an extra suit case of atlases and travel guides.
13) The great spaghetti tour of 1997. Never forget. (We were served spaghetti at every church)
14) Surprisingly, the buses still had microphones. (Megaphone year not withstanding.).
15) Since there was no GPS with traffic alerts (see “NO CELL PHONES”, above), sometimes we spent hours sitting on the interstate at a dead stop. Mark Owens, Braves emcee and esteemed God’s Light Alum, got his start interviewing old ladies and truckers with the cordless bus mic during a traffic jam. #whysafesanctuariesisathing