State Line Grocery

Friday Night:

Vanessa: “Hey Rick, what should we do tomorrow?”

Rick: “Well, we can wash the cars. We have those tickets to that barbershop chorus…”

Vanessa: “Oh yeah… what time does that start?”

Rick: “I’m not sure, 7, 7:30?”

Vanessa: “Well, did you want to go? “

Rick: “Sure…I mean hey, FREE tickets…why not!”

Vanessa: “Yeah, I am all about free and if it’s totally lame, we can leave and go rent a movie or something.”

While Rick was in Swanton, VT for a rotation, he was gifted 2 tickets for the “The Green Mountain Chorus: Barbershop Chorus Concert” at the local high school here in Burlington. Yeah, our tickets were cheap little card stock cutouts, like they were printed from someones home printer. I was skeptical. We had most the day to do whatever we wanted, and attending this Barbershop Chorus was the back-up plan. Ok, so deep down I think we both wanted to go. So we did. And our friends did mock.

Well, we pulled into the high school parking lot at 7:20. We hurried in, passing two elderly folk, who were shuffling their frail bodies towards the doors. We handed over our tickets and found some seats near the front. I sat down and then turned around. It was as if I was looking across a field of cotton; billows of white fluffy hair saturated the auditorium. This room was filled with folks of yesteryear, the kind of people who grew up listening to Barbershop Quartets. I felt so out of place, almost as if I showed up, uninvited, to an 1945 Musical Gala of sorts. I was excited nonetheless.

The Green Mountain Chorus opened the show with old time classics. Then, individual quartets stepped forward, from this large chorus, and sang their best songs. We were impressed. It was good. Well, that’s what we thought, until the “featured” guest artists came onto the stage. They were the State Line Grocery. Neither of us had a clue what we were in for. With a name like that, they could have been a group of clowns. However, this group from Georgia has won international competitions. They were entertaining, comedic and so vocally polished! To hear them alone would have been worth the price of the ticket. There was so much excitement in the air. The crowd cheered after every number. The energy was high. And there we were, two kids, amongst a sea of old folk and and we loved every minute of it!

During the show, in an excited whisper:

Rick: “I want to learn these songs so we can sing them to our kids, this is so awesome!”

Vanessa: “Maybe we should buy one of their CD in the foyer. Wait, check out his wing-tipped shoes, how cool are those!?”

Rick: “Oh man, those are so sweet…I thought you didn’t like wing-tipped shoes?”

Vanessa: “Are you kidding me?! How can I not love the black and white wing-tipped shoes!”

My question is this: Did Barbershop Quartets really start in a barbershop?