FOUNDER’S LETTER

founder’s page

MAY 2022 / DONNA MOFFLY

“Many of our husbands tagged along as cheerleaders— living proof that supporting each other’s interests makes for happier marriages.” OF SPRING SING

Hurray, hurray, the 1st of May! Actually, it’s the first weekend that holds a special place in my heart, ever since we Grace Notes were invited to join Spring Sing in 1971.

This annual event was born sixty-five years ago when some frustrated former Whifs and Nassoons formed a capella groups of their own after college. The Palmer Squares (Princeton), Revelers (Plainfield, New Jersey) and Suburban Squires (Philadelphia) got together for a singing party on a barge floating down the canal in New Hope, Pennsylvania, in early May 1957; and history was born. As word spread, Spring Sing drew people from all over, such as the Spare Parts (Hartford), Augmented 8 (Washington), Grunyons (Detroit), Propah Bostonians, Denver Wizard Oils and Off Sounders from Greenwich.

Hosting Spring Sing at Belle Haven in 1969, the Off Sounders were nice enough to invite us to do one number, and before long the Grace Notes became official members—the first women’s group outside of the Opposite Sextet, wives of the gents on that barge trip. Mixed groups were welcomed, too—with names like the Private Parts (Princeton).

The schedule usually calls for informal singing Friday night, a formal program Saturday and impromptu tunes at Sunday brunch. We sang in myriad places, like the Library of Congress, Kennedy Center, SUNY, Goodspeed, Concord Academy and an opera house 8,000 feet above sea level in Colorado.

Our first appearance was at the Potomac School in McLean, Virginia. Soprano Retta Dippy recalls: “I believe we sang Jane Watts’ arrangement of ‘Sunrise Sunset’ and knocked them all out!”

The gig in Detroit’s Renaissance Hall was particularly memorable because the airline lost our M.C. Libby Flinn’s suitcase. So she borrowed clothes from each of us, wandered onstage wearing somebody else’s slip, skirt, rain jacket, sagging knee-highs and bedroom slippers and announced, “This is what happens when you lose your luggage.” The audience roared. Luckily, the swim fins for her “Big Blue Frog” solo hadn't gone missing.

When Libby was chairman of the Spring Sing we hosted here in ’76, her young son answered a call the preceding Sunday from one of the Augmented 8, asking to speak to her. “Well,” said Mikie, who was sick of the whole thing, “Mommy’s in the bathtub and won’t be out ’til Friday.”

Many of our husbands tagged along as cheerleaders—living proof that supporting each other’s interests makes for happier marriages— and finally decided to get into the act when we were hosts here yet again. They called themselves the Gross Nuts. When our director Helen Bingaman rehearsed them on “I Found Love” (the Spring Sing “theme song,” with some key changes), they all wanted to stand next to Peter Malkin, who really could sing. They made their debut Friday night at Laddin’s Terrace— except Peter Littlefield tripped running into the room, making for a not-so-grand entrance, and they pitched the song so high that the audience couldn’t join in when prompted. Never mind. Their spirit counted—a lot.

During Sunday brunch at the Riverside Yacht Club, my Jack went into the bar and ran across an old girlfriend, now married to one of the out-of-towners. When he asked how she was doing, since he hadn’t seen her for thirty years, she handed him her teeth. Poor thing.

But the weekend was bright and sunny and, as always, would end on a high note. While the Gunyons were boarding the bus to the airport, I waved goodbye, shouting: “God was really good to us today!” In answer, the star of “Freddie Feel Good and his Funky Little Five-Piece Band,” yelled back: “Yes, She was, wasn’t She?!”

Spring Sing will be in Bar Harbor, Maine, this month. May good things—and sings— go on forever. G