On Beethoven’s birthday, thoughts that have absolutely nothing to do with Beethoven

Sixty-five years ago when I was 16, I took two semesters of shorthand, Gregg Diamond Jubilee Shorthand to be exact, during my senior year of high school. My new skill came in very handy for taking notes while in college in the days before tape recorders, and often I was able to give back to the professors their exact words on written assignments and examinations.

I shall now seem to some to be taking off in an entirely different direction, but hold your criticism for a moment.

I became a church organist at the age of 13 or 14 at the First Methodist Church of Mansfield, Texas, where Mr. Thomas McDonald, who was also the band director at the local high school, led the choir. All of the hymns sung by the congregation were found in the old Cokesbury Hymnal, a slim volume that was the predecessor of today's Methodist Hymnal. I came to know most of those hymns very well, but there were many well-known hymns absent from the Cokesbury with which I remained unaware until much later when I was no longer attending Methodist churches, such hymns as T.O. Chisholm's "Great Is Thy Faithfulness" and Fanny Crosby's "To God Be The Glory" and Frances Ridley Havergal's "Like A River Glorious".

Over the years other beautiful hymns entered my consciousness too, such as "Lo, How A Rose E'er Blooming" and "Come, Thou Long-Expected Jesus" and "Abide With Me, 'Tis Eventide" and scores of others. By now I must know several hundred hymns.

There is a verse in the 35th chapter of the book of Job where Elihu says to Job that God, our maker, gives songs in the night. I find that it is true. I can't tell you how many times I have awakened in the night and have an old hymn running through my head. Often it is one of the hymns from the old Cokesbury Hymnal and I surprise myself by still knowing several verses of, such as "We're Marching to Zion (Come, We That Love The Lord)" or "My Jesus, I Love Thee" or "Blessed Assurance" or "I Am Thine, O Lord" or "Come, Thou Fount Of Every Blessing" or "Give Of Your Best To The Master" or "Dear Lord And Father Of Mankind" that invariably take me back to my days in Mansfield. I find the phenomenon fascinating. It has happened so often that I no longer find it unusual.

What is unusual, though, is what happened last night. As one song, then another, then another filled my mind, I found myself writing them out in my mind in Gregg Diamond Jubilee Shorthand. I hadn't even thought about shorthand in years, but apparently once you know it you never forget it.

Somehow it seems appropriate to end this post by saying, what else, "Roll over, Beethoven!"

Tell Tchaikovsky the news.