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.
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