In the town of Normal, Pennsylvania, there’s a little church at the corner of Wilson and Elm. This week, Del Winslow was scheduled to sing a solo for the “special music” portion of the service. He was very excited. Not that this was his first time or anything. He had one of the best voices in the choir – Del thought his was THE best but was usually too modest to say so – and he had performed solos on numerous occasions.
But he hadn’t performed one lately.
Del’s life had been a little busy lately. His wife Karen had recently gone through treatment for leukemia. Plus, his daughter Carrie and son-in-law Carlos had moved in with them eight months earlier when the company they worked for went bankrupt. And immediately after that Carrie had discovered she was pregnant.
So though Del continued to sing in the choir, he had declined to perform solos for half a year due to the chaos at home. But in the last few weeks things had kind of settled down a bit and he thought it was about time he graced the congregation with a little of his talent.
Karen and Carrie would have to miss the performance. Karen was the teacher of the Guppies pre-school Sunday school class, and Carrie had been helping her with that job ever since Karen got sick. But they had heard Del practice all week and predicted it would be a goose-bump inducing show. And Carlos would be in the sanctuary to represent the family.
Shane Reed, the choir director, was as excited as Del to have him doing a solo. It was hard to get people to volunteer for the extra work of performing special music and Shane had come to rely on Del to fill out the calendar.
On the morning of Del’s performance, the Winslow’s took separate cars. Del and Karen went early in Del’s sports utility vehicle so Del could rehearse with the choir. Carrie wasn’t ready to leave yet so she and Carlos decided to follow later in their hatchback. Carrie blamed the delay on the fact that she was eight and a half months pregnant, but the truth was she’d been chronically tardy to church since she was a little girl.
As Del sang the first hymn with the rest of the choir and congregation, he heard some kind of commotion out in the pews. He stole a glance to the side but couldn’t see what it was. He shook his head at the rudeness of “some people.”
He probably would have had a different reaction if he knew it was his wife that was causing the commotion. She had hurried into the sanctuary to get Carlos because Carrie was going into labor. It had happened just as the Sunday school class was starting. Carrie was letting four-year-old Mary Boyer place her hand on Carrie’s pregnant belly to feel the baby kick.
“Wow,” Mary exclaimed. “The baby kicks hard!”
“That wasn’t a kick,” Carrie said. “That was a contraction!” It wasn’t long afterwards that Karen went to retrieve Carlos. She tried to do it quietly, but when Carlos heard the news he reacted as many first time fathers did – with blind panic. He climbed over seventy-year-old Henrietta Miggins to get out of the pew. Henrietta didn’t find that as amusing as the people sitting around her did.
Karen tried to get Carlos to calm down. She succeeded to the extent that Carlos stopped hyperventilating and avoided passing out. However she did not succeed to the extent that Carlos delivered Carrie safely to the hospital. In fact, on his first attempt he didn’t even get her out of the parking lot.
The weather in Normal that day was pretty good for late January. It was clear and sunny, but it was also cold and there was still some snow on the ground from the last storm. Carlos was normally a fairly competent driver but in his present state he hit the gas a little too hard backing out of the parking space and the hatchback skidded on the icy pavement.
Fortunately there were no other cars directly behind him. Unfortunately there was a ditch back there. Fortunately the ditch was filled with crusty old snow so the impact was gentle and the only damage was to the passengers’ nerves. Unfortunately the snow was deep enough that the car was stuck.
Carlos left Carrie at the edge of the parking lot without waiting to hear the end of her critique of his driving skills. He sought out head usher Ralph Billings for help who in turn summoned Kevin Boyer and Thad Wheeling from the congregation. By sheer coincidence this occurred during the next hymn. Up in the chancel Del shook his head again at the congregation’s rudeness and hoped he wouldn’t have to endure such behavior during his special music presentation.
Ralph, Kevin, Thad and Carlos debated how best to free the car from its predicament while Carrie moved on to analyzing the relative intelligence levels of the four men, throwing in the Guppies’ class rabbit as a point of comparison.
Ultimately it was decided that due to the terrain it would be easier to push the car through the ditch and out the other side where there was a driveway for a neighboring shopping complex. Carlos took the wheel while Ralph, Kevin and Thad got behind the car to push. Carrie watched, momentarily silenced by another contraction.
With barely any effort at all the car sprang forward and out of the ditch. And then it slid across the icy drive and into the ditch on the other side, which was even deeper than the one it had been in.
As the four men surveyed the new predicament Carrie joined them. “Excuse me,” she said. “Just thought you should know the contractions are now four minutes apart.”
Carlos started hyperventilating again.
“Maybe we should borrow my parents’ SUV,” Carrie suggested.
Ralph went to get the keys from Karen while Carlos sat on a step with his head between his knees. Kevin and Thad tried to comfort him. Carrie abandoned her analysis of their characters. There was simply too much to criticize.
Naturally, Karen didn’t have her keys with her. Ralph would have to get them from Del. At this point, Ralph was beginning to panic. He ran to the sanctuary, where, as luck would have it, Del was just stepping up to the center of the chancel to begin his solo.
“Del,” Ralph yelled as he sprinted up the center aisle.
“Oh this is really just too much,” Del said.
Ralph stumbled to a stop at the foot of the steps leading up to the chancel. Between gasps he said, “I need…your keys…for the SUV…Carlos…drove his…car into…a ditch…and they’re four…minutes apart.”
“Who is four minutes apart?” Del asked, thoroughly confused.
“Carries’…contractions,” Ralph wheezed.
Del stood there for a few seconds taking that in. Then he took off running up the center aisle and out the front door. Ralph sat down on the chancel steps to catch his breath. Nobody else seemed to know what to do.
Finally Shane, the choir director, stepped forward. “Looks like there’s going to be a change of program,” he said. “Would everyone please turn in their hymnal to page 342.” He didn’t know what hymn 342 was off the top of his head, but he figured it didn’t really matter at that point.
Del got Carrie and Carlos to the hospital in less than twenty minutes. And fourteen hours later Carrie gave birth to a beautiful baby boy. As Del held his first grandchild in his arms he softly sang the song he never got to perform at church. His audience loved it.
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