Merry Christmas to You All!

It's probably the most unique record album of the many UP WITH PEOPLE recorded back in the 1960s, '70s and '80s.

Produced in a Los Angeles studio, according to Linda Blackmore Cates (the featured solist on the cover of the album), it was funded by an UWP donor and created "following an amazing gathering of all the UWP casts in Sante Fe, New Mexico during the Christmas period of 1967."

In addition to Linda's involvement (she now lives in the Nashville area), there were several other Tennesseeans involved with the album's production. Her husband-to-be Bill Cates (they had just gotten engaged) played a role in the recordings. Bill served as Musical Director for Up With People after being the original Music Director of Sing Out South.

Bill Cates in May, 1966 with Sing-Out South

And then there's the title song for the album "MERRY CHRISTMAS TO YOU ALL" which Linda says was written by former SOS cast member Cabot Wade when he was a part of Cast C of Up With People in 1967.

Linda Blackmore Cates & Cabot Wade at an UWP People Reunion

Thanks to YouTube and Willie Knowles' Up With People 1965-1970 Facebook page, here's the title song of MERRY CHRISTMAS TO YOU ALL with Linda as the featured solist...

Linda told me one more very interesting thing about this title song. She wishes she had done another take of it in the studio! She didn't like how she has done the closing part of the song, feeling she missed a note at end. However, she says nobody has ever mentioned any concerns to her about that over all the years.

Linda has other strong memories during the time the album was recorded, including one surrounding the creation of the song THE HOPE OF MANKIND. It's also featured on the MERRY CHRISTMAS TO YOU ALL album. Linda says the music for the song came out of a dream which Herb Allen, the all-star UWP song writer and producer, had one night.

The next morning he was so excited, he called Linda, woke her up ,then had her come over to hear the song played on a piano for the very first time. Here it is from YouTube and the 1965-1970 UWP cast Willie Knowles Facebook page as heard on the MERRY CHRISTMAS album...

Linda says this song was the highlight of the album for her which also featured many of UWP's stars at that time including:

Frank Fields
Pat Ector
Finis Fator
Debbie Kirkpatrick
THE UP WITH PEOPLE CHORUS

Here's another original song from the album featuring some of those artists and the UWP Chorus entitled A PRESENT FOR SANTA...


The album was produced in stereo and released under the PACE RECORDS label in time for the 1968 Christmas season. In my archives information, I found a 4/color circular about the album inserted the next year in 1969 inside an edition of TOMORROW'S AMERICAN.

The ad features the album for sale with the extra bonus of it being available at the low price of just $3.98 along with all the other UWP People albums at the time (UWP I, II, III and FRONTIERS OF TOMORROW) all being offered in tandem for a similar price to be given as holiday gifts.

Today, the album may be more difficult to buy. I could not find its sheet music on line and I am not sure it has been released on CD by UWP. All I could find were some album copies available (in various conditions) ranging in price from$5.00 to $9.95 on E-Bay.

Along with several original songs, the MERRY CHRISTMAS also features UWP arrangments of several classic Christmas carols such as I WONDER AS I WONDER, AWAY IN A MANGER, O LITTLE TOWN OF BETHLEHEM and this classic....O HOLY NIGHT!


If any of you reading this blog posting were involved in this recording, we'd love for you to share your memories here or send them to me by e-mail, and I can post them (pat.nolan@dvl.com).

I can share one review of this album which I recently found on on-line. It was written some 40 years after the album was recorded. Dated Thursday, September 25, 2008 on the blog site A CHRISTMAS YULE BLOG, the un-bylined article says:

"The album is undeniably Sixties--the sound, the pop beat, the smell of dacron and polyester. At times, it goes so overboard that you need scuba equipment to simply breathe.

There are fun Christmas songs (JINGLE BELL BEAT, A PRESENT FOR SANTA), traditional carols (AWAY IN A MANGER, O LITTLE TOWN OF BETHLEHEM) and at time preachy songs (PAT'S POEM, UP WITH PEOPLE) with a hint of Christmas that make them qualify for this album.

Overall, I liked the album, and the soloists (Debbie Kirkpatrick, Linda Blackmore, Pat Ector) did a fine job when the spotlight shone on them. The group singing is very reminiscent of a hip Mitch Miller & The Gang and the '60s sound is a true flashback."

So MERRY CHRISTMAS TO YOU ALL, to all, the best in 2011!

A Sing-Out White Christmas

Something appears to be ready to happen in Nashville for Christmas Day that hasn't been seen since the days of Sing-Out South. That's 41 years ago in 1969.

A White Christmas!

Forecasters say the city could get at least a couple of inches beginning late Christmas Eve and into Christmas Day. Technically, Nashville had a White Christmas in 1993, but that was only for about three-tenths of an inch. The last time we had appreciable snow was in 1969 when we received almost 3 inches.

I remember that Christmas. It was my first year in college and I had gone to Midnight Mass at the Cathedral with several of my Sing-Out friends. It was just raining hard at that time. So when I went to bed, I thought we'd missed out again on the white stuff. Nashville has had a White Christmas only a handful of times during my life. But when I awoke to join my little brothers and sisters to see what Santa Claus brought, there was this wonderland of white outside.

My father's favorite singer was Bing Crosby and it wasn't the holiday season until he got out his White Christmas album and began to play the title song. In 1969, with all the snow on the ground outside, it seemed like a dream come true, just as Bing sang it (after Irving Berlin wrote it) for the movies so many years ago....


Bing Crosby - White Christmas
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While we didn't have snow very often for Christmas, during our time growing up in Nashville in the 1960s, we did have a lot of Christmas traditions, beginning with the annual Christmas Parade held on the first Sunday of December.

In 1966, the parade featured Sing-Out South as we entertained tens of thousands of Nashvillians as we rode on a float in the parade. We also darn near froze to death as it was quite cold that day as I remember it.

Not far from the Christmas Parade site, thousands of people every year,during the 1950s and '60s, came to Centennial Park to see the annual Nativity Scene, sponsored by the city and Harvey's Department Store, in front of the Parthenon. While it would never work today putting a Christian symbol in front of a pagan temple in a government owned public park, none of that was an issue in those days. Just the beauty of the scence that made it a special Nashville Christmas treat every year.

While the Parthenon Nativity scene eventually just wore out from age and weather exposure in the late 1960s, the tradition of special Christmas lights continues in Nashville with the annual holidays displays (and special holiday shows) at the Gaylord Opryland Hotel. To see this year's display is especially moving for Nashvillians because the Hotel was damaged by the terrible May Floods and closed for several months, opening just in time for the holidays and those special lights!

Another Nashville Christmas tradition still going strong to this very day is holiday caroling to raise money for the Fannie Battle Day Home. I can remember going caroling with Sing-Out friends, especially in Patty Mayer Higgins' neighborhood on Christmas Eve, 1968. What made it particularly memorable was coming in for hot chocolate just in time to watch the Apollo VIII astronauts on TV, orbiting the moon for the first time in history and reading from the Bible and the Book of Genesis...

When you look back, Nashville was clearly a wonderful community to grow up in, with many great Christmas traditions that continue in one fashion or another to the present time. No wonder, there is something of a Christmas song that speaks to it.
Here's Nashville's own Amy Grant, appearing with her former husband Steven Chapman in 1986 on the TONIGHT SHOW with Johnny Carson,singing a Tennessee Christmas....

Merry Christmas, everyone from what many hope to be a snowy Tennessee Christmas for 2010!

The Island

I am taking a business trip this coming week to Connecticut. In making my plane and lodging accomodations, I realized I will be less than 20 miles from David's Island and Ft. Slocum in New York state where many of us spent several weeks over two summers (in 1967 &'68) as a part of the World Sing-Out Festivals held there.

It made we wonder what's going on there today, including the nearby city of New Rochelle, NY.

New Rochelle, NY has about the same size population now at 73,260 as it did back in the late 1960s (75,385 in 1970 census) when it was the host city for the World Sing-Out Festivals. It is still the seventh largest city in the State of New York and is listed by the American Podiatric Medical Association as one of the best cities to walk in the nation. In November, 2008, New Rochelle was also named by BUSINESS WEEK magazine as of the best places nationally to raise children.

Long known as a town with a significant amount of single-family residential developments, including some communities that were listed by FORBES Magazine in 2006 as among the "most expensive zip codes" in the country,the downtown area had a significant revitalization in the late 1990s with a $190 million entertainment center. It is located near the former Macy's and Mall which had be built and opened in 1968.

According to Wikipedia, New Rochelle is also known for its impressive collection of parklands and nature preserves, but the city has had a long struggle when it comes to similar efforts regarding David Island's.

David's Island has had many names over the years. Its current name comes from an ink manufacturer, Thaddeus Davids, who was a longtime resident of New Rochelle and owner of the island back in the 18th century.

Rented by the federal government during the Civil War and used as a hospital for wounded prisoners, Davids Island was later purchased by Congress and used for a variety of purposes over the years including as a recruitment depot, an army base,and as a costal artillery post to defend New York harbor. In the late 1950s, it was also the site for a Nike Ajax air-defense battery. During its time in World War II as a recruiting and training base, the famous "Sound off,, one, two" miltary cadence was reportedly invented there.

The installation built on Davids Island was given the name, Ft. Slocum, in honor of Major General Henry Slocum, one of the youngest generals to fight in the Civil War and later a New York congressman. The facility was also once home of the U.S. Army Chaplain School and the U.S. Information School where Army and Air Force personnel were trained in journalism, public affairs and photography.

After being deactivated as military installation, there were reportedly plans by Con Edison to build a nuclear plant there before the island was sold to the city of New Rochelle in 1967.

After lying more or less unused for several years, during the summer of 2008, the city of New Rochelle reportedly demolished every remaining structure on the Island including the iconic water tower which was on the northern end of the Island (as seen above).

Unfortunately, progress in developing a park on Davids Island continues to be difficult. Acording to a posting on the City of New Rochelle website, during his recent State of the City speech on March 11,2010, New Rochelle Mayor Noam Bramson (seen above) talked about the matter, and "to the surprise and delight of many in his audience of citizens and civic leaders," announced a new focus on the project, "envisioning development with sustainable design of world class quality and global demonstration value, to benefit the Island's unique status and potential." (Don't some of those adjectives that sound like something Blanton Belk would have said during one of our conferences? LOL)

Continuing to quote from the City of New Rochelle's website and Mayor Bramson's remarks, "In announcing a fresh approach to Davids Island, Mayor Branson refocuses attention on a site that has both enraptured and frustrated community leaders for decades. Bramson's proposal entails a city-directed planning analysis as a precursor to the selection of a master developer--with significant public access, reasonable and limited scale, and above all, cutting edge sustainable design serving as the guiding principals for any project."

I don't fully know the reasons for concerns, but the Mayor's speech talks about his plan resolving "long standing tensions between economic and environmental goals surrounding the project." More specifically, I have seen reports that the Island today is home to a variety of plants, birds and animals, including an endangered sea turtle, and rare birds such as the osprey and least terns. Davids Island also reportedly supports valuable wetlands, rare rocky intertidal areas and sandy beaches. The waters surrounding the Island are home to Winter Flounder, Atlantic Herring and Atlantic Silversides.

I believe the road above is the one we used to go over to the Island by ferry during our World Sing-Out Festivals. It would have been great during my business trip to steal some time away to go over again by ferry to visit the new park. But as Mayor Bramson says: "Davids Island is a tough nut to crack." Indeed. But he also believes recent federal funds "secured by local Congresswoman Nita Lowey, together with evolving building and design standards, (will create) new options for progress."

I sure hope so, and I suspect so do thousands of former UWP and Sing-Out alumni from all over the world who remember fondly the days we spent on Davids Island so many years ago.

Time to Begin Planning the 45th Reunion

2011 marks the 45th anniversary of the founding of Sing-Out South.

So it's time to start organizing a Reunion for sometime next year.


And what better place to start than to hold our organizing meeting at Shoney's!

After all, that was the place we often hung out after practices and shows. And while the famous Big Boy (above) is no longer the mascot symbol for the restaurant chain (it's now Shoney Bear), many of the Shoney's still have a semi-private backroom area where a small group can get together and do some planning (and eating, if you are hungry).

And so this Saturday night, December 4 at 5:00 p.m., a few of us will be gathering at the Shoney's in Bellevue, which is located at 7745 Highway 70S. There we will begin to put our ideas and calendars together to see what kind of Reunion we can organize for 2011.

If you are a former SOS or UWP alum in this area, please join us if you'd like. Or if you have thoughts and ideas to suggest send them along to me here on this site or by e-mail (pat.nolan@dvl.com).

More precise directions to the Bellevue Shoney's are:

Go I-40 West towards Memphis

Take Exit 196 (Bellevue/Newsom Station)

At the end of the exit ramp, turn right onto US Highway 70s.

The Shoney is almost immediately on the left, less than .1 of a mile from the I-40 exit.

The Sing-Out South Football Game/Cast vs. Crew

Other than New Year's Day with all its bowl games, I can't think of an American holiday more identified with football than Thanksgiving.

I guess that's why as the holiday approached this year, I was reminded of the SOS football game between the male members of the cast and the stage crew. We held it in a vacant lot near Vanderbilt just off Natchez Trace (I think either the Student Recreation Center or one of the tennis facilities are there today). I can't remember when we played, but it was probably in the summer of 1968.

Of course, we played touch football.

And the Crew killed us.

I think they may have practiced and developed some plays, including some deep reverses in the backfield that always had us chasing the wrong guy (the one without the ball) while the other player scored.

Except for one play which remains one of my favorite Sing-Out and overall personal sports memories.

For some reason, we required any team that scored to attempt the extra point. Since no one on either side was a kicker (and we had no goal posts anyway), we had to run a play from scrimmage for the conversion.

On this particular extra point attempt, I broke into the backfield while the Crew tried to execute another reverse. This time, I figured out what was coming, intercepted the lateral and took off running for the other end zone.

For the first (and only) time in my life, I outran everyone (including my cousin, Gene) all the way down the field....only to be told that it didn't count. While the defense can return an extra point for two points now, in those days you couldn't, so my dash went for absolutely nothing!

I was exhausted....and not very happy!

Jimmy Wilson, one of my Father Ryan classmates, was the referee that day, and he did remark on what I did when he wrote in my senior yearbook. "That's the way it goes," he said. Which pretty well sums up my athletic career after being blessed with the four Ss, that being short, small, slow and skinny (at least back then).

I don't have any particular Thanksgiving memories surrounding Sing-Out South. Much like the photo above of Norman Rockwell's famous SATURDAY EVENING POST Magazine cover, Thanksgiving is a time for family, so we didn't perform any shows or hold any practices during the holday weekend.

But the warm memories of the people I met and became friends with in Sing-Out are still very important to me. And that's why I am looking forward to planning our 45th reunion to be held sometime in 2011. if you'd like to help or have a memory to share, let me know.

In the meantime....Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!

Practice, Practice, Practice

While we talk a lot on this blog about the shows we did all over Nashville, Middle Tennessee and Southern Kentucky, as well as the trips we made to various national conferences, we really spent much more time together practicing the show usually twice a week (Tuesday nights and Saturday afternoons).

That includes a lot of time we spent at the National Guard Armory (seen above) where we practiced at the old Quanset Hut there as well as in the main Armory Auditorium on Sidco Drive as well.

ell.
Most of the very early practices (as seen above) were held at what is now Belmont University. But frankly, from the beginning we held practices all over town. Here's a list of where the original cast practiced from its creation at the end of January, 1966 until the cast left for the ACTION NOW! conference Estes Park Colorado in early June of that same year

Belmont University
Father Ryan Gym (Elliston Place campus)
St. Bernard High Gym
Hillsboro High Auditorium
East High Auditorium
West End High School Auditorium
War Memorial Auditorium
Issac Litton High School
National Guard Armory
David Lipscomb University

Even after the original SOS Cast Director Dan Skuce (seen above) had departed, the tradition of practicing all over Nashville continued when the cast reformed in July, 1966 after the Estes Park conference. It began in the gym at Christ The King Catholic Church grammar school on July 13, 1966. From there the practice sites moved around although in some cases we practiced for several months at a time (and usually stored our stage and our sound equipment there). Those sites included:

St. Thomas School of Nursing Gym & Auditorium
Trevecca Nazarene College
The Boiler Supply Company on Craighead Avenue
First Baptist Church Downtown Activity Building
The National Guard Armory Quanset Hut

Other practice sites included places we had been before along with some new sites:

West End High School
East High School
Main Street Commerce Union Bank in East Nashville
100 Oaks Activity Room
St. Bartholomew Episcopal Church
Apollo Jr. High School
Woodmont Baptist
I doubt that's a complete list but we did do a practice in one very unusual location...Henry Swider's backyard at 50 Vaughn Gap's Road near St. Henry's Catholic Church. I think it was in the late spring or summer of 1967 or '68.

That's Henry Swider pictured above, wearing the football jersey. He was the Director of the Crew and often kept the stage and our audio equipment in the basement of his home with the help of his Dad and other members of the Crew. I guess that's why we once held practice there (maybe we couldn't find anyplace else that Saturday).

At any rate, I don't remember anyone complaining about it, although you know with all the stage and sound equipment being used, it had to be pretty loud. Today, there's no question, someone would have complained and called the police, but it was a very different time back then, as we were learning our craft and enjoying our time together.

Practice on stage at Saint Bernard Academy in the winter of 1966

Practicing "WE VOLUNTEER" for one of the first times during practice at Father Ryan High School in the winter of 1966.

If you have any practice memories to share or if we've missed some sites you remember please leave us a comment or drop me an e-mail at pat.nolan@dvl.com.

Nashville's Christmas Village Turns 50

One of Nashville's great holiday traditions, Christmas Village, celebrates its 50th year this coming week. Founded in 1961 by the Nashville Pi Beta Phi Alumnae Club, all proceeds go to benefit the Vanderbilt Bill Wilkerson Center, the Arrowmont School of Arts & Crafts and other Pi Beta Phi charities.

For Christmas Village this is where it all began back in the 1960s, Nashville's venerable Hippodrome on West End Avenue just across from Centennial Park. And this is where Sing-Out South performed as a part of the Christmas Village festivities in November, 1966. See the photo and cut line below from THE NASHVILLE BANNER featuring some of the Christmas Village volunteers and SOS Cast Director Ted
Overman creating their own Victorian Christmas scene...


The photo above gives an inside look at the old Hippodrome, which normally was used as a roller skating rink and sports arena. But with so many booths squeezed inside along the floor for Christmas Village, I remember how crowded we were doing the show there. Our choreography was a bit bumpy that day.

When the Hippodrome was torn down to make way for the Vanderbilt Holiday Inn in the early 1970s, Christmas Village moved to the Tennessee State Fairgrounds where for many years now it has transformed the Women's Buildings there into a shopper's paradise...

Frankly that scene looks a lot like how crowded it was when SOS performed there. Some things never change much, I guess. But ironically, as Christmas Village observes a half century of spreading holiday shopping cheer, another move seems to be in the making as it appears likely (the Metro Council approving) that Christmas Village 2011 will be held at the city's new Expo Center at the old Hickory Hollow Mall in Antioch just off I-24.

A Final Reflection On The SMILE

It's been two weeks since we gathered to see the documentary SMILE 'TIL IT HURTS: THE UP WITH PEOPLE STORY at the Belcourt Theatre here in Nashville.

I asked those who attended and who were once part of Sing-Out South here in Nashville and/or who traveled with one of the national casts of Up With People to send me their thoughts about they saw and heard.

Ann Garrett Clay and Pat Hankins Kemper came together to see the film. Ann was a part of SOS for several years while attending Overton High School. Pat was also an Overton student and a member of Sing-Out South. She spent some time as well traveling with one of the UWP national casts.

Sing-Out South taping a TV special at WSIX-TV in Nashvillefor Memorial Day, 1967

Said Ann Clay: "I enjoyed the history of the film and the impact of MRA (Moral Rearmament). Even though we (in Sing-Out South) knew about MRA, it never was presented as any political or religious stance to us. We were just a group of good kids spreading songs of freedom and hope to others. I cherish those times and the friendships that have remained for 45 years!"

The combined casts of Up With People leave Estes Park, CO. in the summer of 1966

Said Pat Kemper:"I thought the film was very well done and represented a begining point and history of the UWP movement as well as MRA. Like you, I wish there had been more of an international representation and it would have been nice to see the SOS history incorporated since it was the catalyst for the other two casts (Casts B & C) forming after UWP was in Nashville in 1966."

"As Ann and I were discussing afterwards, there was not a political undertow for us. It was about changing the world, and believing it could be done. Being a part of that was something we wanted to do."

"For me, traveling with the national cast was a life-changing experience and gave me the fortitude to be outspoken and believe in the philosophy that all are created equal;and no matter the color of skin or religious affiliation we have the right to be whatever we want to be."

Nashville's Linda Blackmore Cates, an early UWP star, who is interviewed in the film

"Even though Linda was an internal and intricate part of the beginning of the UWP movement, there were things she saw and did that we had no part of, and knew nothing about what went on behind the scenes or on duck hunting trips" (blogger's note: you need to see the documentary to fully understand this last reference).

Pat had one final comment concerning another powerful part of the film where an UWP cast member deals with one of the parents in a host family in Mississippi, who brandishes a shotgun when he learn he is hosting a black person: "Maggie Inge's experience as a black in the '60s as well as a cast member of UWP was an amazing testimony to what we were trying to do and accomplish."

Sing-Out South tapes an appearance on the local Bozo show in the fall of 1966.

The last SMILE reflection I have to share comes from, Dave Cannon, an SOS cast member and a member of the main trio back in 1967 and '68. You can see Dave on the front row on the far right side of the photo above. Dave remains concerned about the breakup of UWP, the local Sing-Outs and MRA in 1968. He believes the decision was too controlled by UWP leader J. Blanton Belk.

"I still feel a might had....He (Belk) filled the board with absentee board members and one person must have made that decision for all three national casts, all the local casts, and the international casts."

Then Dave added something, I think many of us may have wondered when we left after seeing the film, particularly those of us who used to seeing motion pictures together back in the '60s (such as 2001:A Space Odessey) and then go to Shoney's or other Nashville restaurants and discuss what we saw for hours.

SOS members Bob Sharp and Henry Swider discuss matters during one of our SOS bull sessions.

Said Dave Cannon: "I kept sitting there thinking, I wonder what Henry would have said about that movie?"

Me too, Dave, Me, too. Thanks to everyone for sharing their thoughts!

Reflections On THE SMILE II

It was exactly a week ago since we gathered at Nashville's Belcourt Theatre to see the award-winning documentary SMILE 'TIL IT HURTS:THE UP WITH PEOPLE STORY.

Some 80 people were in attendance with a question and answer session following with Lee Storey, the Director of the film and Linda Blackmore Cates, a star of the early Sing-Out and UWP casts, who was interviewed in the production.

I asked all the former SOS and UWP folks who attended to send me their thoughts and here's some of what I have received.

Linda Blackmore Cates had participated in other showings and question and answer sessions about SMILE while it went through the film festival circuit last year, but the Nashville appearance was particularly special because this is now her home town.

"It was an amazing experience for me and my family, as you can imagine. None of them had seen the film, including Bill (Bill Cates was also a early driving force in both UP WITH PEOPLE and Nashville's SING-OUT SOUTH). It was so wonderful to seem so many friends from years past," Linda said.

One of Linda's long-time friends who was present and saw SMILE for the first time was Christy Marsh Haines. She had thoughts of when she first saw Sing-Out' 66 in Nashville and then joined SING OUT SOUTH.

"When Sing Out '66 came through Nashville in January, 1966 I went with a boy I was dating. He was a member of the SDS (Students for a Democratic Society--the leftist movement of the day). He went away disgusted. I went away enthusiastic. (We broke up, of course!) I became immediately involved in the leadership of forming the new Sing-Out South in the spring of 1966."

"Those were heady days, meeting with the governor, singing for the state legislature, being endorsed by everyone. We had our own creative element that shaped a great deal of what we did (aided by the national Sing-Out group)."

"This is where I first met Bill Cates, our (SOS) musical director. The first time he ever played "Do You Really Care" for a group was at a planning meeting in our living room. It was in that first Sing-Out South show and later in the Baptist Hymnal."

Christy was 17 and a junior at Hillwood High School in the spring of 1966. She remembers the cast as being about 3/4 high school students, 1/4 quarter college students. She then offers this story about a matter that SMILE focuses on quite a bit about the national Sing-Out/UP WITH PEOPLE movement, the role of Moral Re-Armament.

"I would guess the very great majority of us were committed Christians, involved in local churches...I know we must have heard of Moral Re-Armament, but it was really peripheral. We were not joining Sing-Out South to become a part of MRA. I don't know that any of us had the desire to commit our lives in any ongoing ways to the movement. We knew we would be active, then graduating from college and moving on, or graduating from high school and going off to college, and then passing the torch.

We were passionate about the message of freedom, and equality of people, and all the positive things that began with the individual commitment that then spread to others. In my mind, it was the same message I had been taught in Sunday School. This was just a very organized, attractive way to tell it to lots of people."

But as Christy continued her involvement with Sing-Out South, she did run head long into an issue concerning MRA. It occured when she was selected to make one of the "Speak Outs" during a show, in this case our TV special at Channel 4, WSM-TV.

"In the rehersals, I 'made the mistake' of making some direct Christian reference. I was told I could not do that, and I felt I could not make the speech otherwise. I was replaced. That began my personal research into the history and organization of Moral Re-Armament. I determined that although it had many positive aspects, I wanted to spend my time, talents and energy elsewhere. I really stopped keeping up with it after that, and was amazed to hear that it had continued on into the 1980s."

But while Christy left Sing-Out, she did get back in touch with Bill Cates some years later when they worked together on a musical through the Baptist Sunday School Board. By that time, Bill had married Linda ("Miss Joan Of Arc marries Mr. Do You Really Care," she quips). On meeting Linda she remembers:

"We instantly became good friends, and then no matter where in the country either of us moved, we stayed in touch, until we both ended up actually living in the same city (Nashville) and raising our children together. Part of that deep-friendship is based in not just the knowledge of, but also the understanding of, how we grew up through Up With People and Sing-Out."

Christy offers one last reflection about our evening with SMILE.

"My son-in-law Charlie Pray asked the question (durng the Q&A) about the lasting effects of the movement, and Linda answered in terms of passing it on to her children. I started thinking about how her involvement impacted thousands of us "next generations" as individuals. And how we "next generations" impacted thousands more of the next generation as individual people, and so forth. Each of us see those ideals that we incorporated in out personal lives bearing fruit in our children and our grandchildren.

Linda, you bore hundreds of thousands of children, and grandchildren and great-grandchildren."

I have other SMILE reflections to share. More in my next posting here soon.