I Have Remembered Thee, Jerusalem

by Iampunha

When I recount memories of high school, the majority of things that come to mind are negative events; those four years were not a happy part of my life. There are, however, moments I cherish, Many of them are self-explanatory . . . my solo in “Godspell” in my senior year; setting a personal record (17 feet, 6 inches) in the long jump, an event I had never been good at; being named MIP (Most Improved Player) of that track team; the conversations with my chemistry teacher, who had been trying as hard as he could to get me into Chemistry 2AP (I did get in, and performed decently) unbeknownst to me; those eight Saturdays in my Senior year when the football team went 8-0; reading my European History teacher’s comments on my class performance and learning that he, who had trained for opera but gave it up for a family and a love for teaching, considered me the best singer in the school (he was the assistant director of the Glee Club and the director of the school’s madrigal group).

Most of these things happened in my senior year of high school, with the exception of the conversations I had with Dom Francis (my chem teacher) sophomore year, and the following year when we had established a relationship outside of chemistry. But one item that I had, until recently, forgotten about, is a song the Glee Club sang my first year, then abandoned until more than two years had past.

For roughly an hour a week during my freshman year of high school I was free from the hell high school was quickly becoming. Those people who were untouchable during the week (upperclassmen) were human then in the presence of Father Ambrose, the man who had led the Glee Club when my father was there from 1974 to 1977, and who was still going strong nearly twenty years later. The chasm that was my desire to be home was partially sated during that hour when all the stories my father had of this man, who had also been his housemaster and English teacher, came alive. The classroom that doubled as the Glee Club room, in the basement of the administration building (and where I would later perform in one play and three musicals), was exactly as my father had described it: sheet music from several decades of dutiful collection and admiration; a record collection any long-time collector would long for; the small wooden chairs set up in an arc; metal stands in the corner of the room, along with a small oil painting given to Father Ambrose by a former student; the piano, which had obviously not been replaced, as several of the keys were chipped and one or two had been stripped down to wood; the beige curtains surrounding a blackboard upon which he would incessantly write “irony,” in the hopes that his students would be able to grasp its true meaning, and upon which sometimes I found a particular era of music history scribbled furiously with names and pieces and dates, all of which he had memorized so many years before (and a rare time it was when he didn’t have a recording of whatever pieces were listed on that board). The main subject of interest was that his room was never particularly cold or hot, since the boiler, among other things, was on the same floor (though in another room) down there and kept things warm in the winter, and the depth of the room kept it cool in spring and summer.

When I arrived at high school in September of 1999, that stronghold I had heard about first as a small child was still there, though his power was slowly being usurped by a failed opera singer whose professional demise came not from other commitments but from, ultimately, the combination of a bad lisp and that “je ne sais quoi” she just didn’t have. Her son was then a sophomore (I would have two classes and share a year of JV basketball with him) and she was exerting increasing amounts of directorship in Glee Club, much to the dismay of the members (we would go from around 30 my freshman year to maybe fifteen two years later). By halfway through that year she had essentially assumed control of Glee Club, and when I returned for my sophomore year she had taken over completely; Father Ambrose would often be half an hour late or so because she didn’t see his presence as a necessity, despite her obvious lack of piano skills and her inability to focus on more than herself and her precious sopranos.

My freshman year we covered many songs with him I have long-since forgotten, though the happiness I associate with them has not left. Imagine my glee at being able to sing in a four-part harmony (previously done on rare occasion with family members) with people who were there because they wanted to be, not because they had to be (as freshman chorus was, and as chorus was in grade school). At this point my voice was changing from soprano to tenor; I would finish a shade below true tenor, but I can still sing soprano and alto parts if need be.

The one song I now remember quite fondly remained in my memory for a very good reason, and one which will become apparent. At nearly every Glee Club rehearsal we sang this song, though I do not remember it ever being featured at Mass. When Mrs. Kavanagh (pronounced Kah-vuh-nah) took over, it was as though this song ceased to exist. Once in my sophomore year, a Glee Club member whose family were somewhat influential asked to sing the song at the next week’s practice. Somehow she dodged that one then and every few weeks thereafter, and he graduated without ever singing it again in practice.

Junior year came, and the Glee Club that had been loud and strong just two years before was reduced to fifteen people; two were freshmen. Word had gotten out that Glee Club was not the place to be if you wanted to have any fun singing (or at all, really). I continued to attend practice for two main reasons: I still loved to sing, despite the pollution Mrs. K had inflicted upon us with her “operatic” voice; and, it was worth everything to see Father Ambrose once a week, though I could see his obedience to the Abbot (whose decision it had been to bring Mrs. K in and keep her) was at times incredibly difficult to take. He had told my father that she was just what the program needed and we could all three tell he didn’t mean it.

One day that year, in what served as our cafeteria, I ran into Father Ambrose. I had been talking to some of the more dedicated in our group, all but one of whom (out of the entire group) were completely fed up with this woman. We wanted her gone and him back.

I had always been somewhat afraid of Father Ambrose because he was very tall, and complete with the gray hair, black robes and solid body (I would conservatively put him at six feet four inches tall and 230 lbs) he was an imposing figure, though he tried not to be. And for the longest time I had been scared to talk to him because of my perceptions due to his body and the stories I had heard of his sternness. But that day . . . I had to talk to him. I had to tell him he was not alone in his silent desire to see her gone. I walked up to him and looked him in the face (not an easy task, as he was at least eight inches taller than I) and said, “Father, a lot of us want you back in control.” The emotion that followed that simple, bold statement I can best describe as when you’re so happy you want to laugh and cry at the same time. In his reaction I could tell that he wanted to be back with us, too; instead of shrugging off my comment and telling me she was best for the program, he instructed me on a plausible course of action for expressing this view, which I could feel he shared. And it was in that willingness to see a future devoid of Mrs. K that there was a silent bond of types. I never told anyone about that meeting; I considered it a mark of pride. And, secretly, I had no idea how to go about getting Mrs. K ousted, though my fellow Glee Club members and I often openly fantasized about it.

I think it was a day in March of my junior year when that song came back in practice with Mrs. K. I took a copy of the song and fought back tears as the words came to me independent of the song sheet. Good thing, too, because I could not have read those words had Father Ambrose’s life depended on it. It was over in about three minutes, but those few minutes had given me what I needed to last the rest of the year with that woman had Father Ambrose not come again.

Junior year also saw the arrival of Mr. Clark, an incredibly intelligent and talented man who would later serve as assistant to Father Ambrose (Mr. Clark, having seen the latter’s talent, would not accept a position as his superior). I didn’t get to know him well until the following year, when I had him for Modern European History.

Senior year came, and with the graduation of her son Mrs. K had left the school.

I don’t know the circumstances, but I didn’t want to question the decision or inquire after her. Mr. Clark had not yet come to his later position of power; he was still another singer who helped Father Ambrose. So for a blessed month or so we were as we had been three years before; thirty students who sang at the instruction of Father Ambrose, a man who could play piano with one hand and conduct with the other. I have yet to meet his equal in that area (among so many others). And for an hour and a half or so every week I was back in heaven; it was as though freshman year had been transposed three years forward, and I was in the place of the seniors I had looked up to as gods in their own right.

Mr. Clark came to his position of power under Father Ambrose and gave us back our song. Once again I did not need the words, and this time I did not accept them. A Glee Club that had been fifteen members the year before was now back at thirty; it would max out around fifty-five before settling down just shy of forty (which, in a school of not quite 300, is a nice size). Where Mrs. K had outright ignored various sections of the Glee Club, Mr. Clark knew that what needed feeding was not his own ego (he didn’t perform all the solos; she had very nearly done so) but the voices and souls of the Glee Club.

Mr. Clark would later start a madrigal group and I would be his first tenor. It met on Tuesday nights after Glee Club and on the occasional Monday when we wanted. It was twelve of us and him, and though he knew more than we did he recognized the need for an equality we could not afford in Glee Club. It was a musical freedom I had never seen before; being able to instruct and be instructed by other members in the sanctuary of this incredibly talented man. It was the one place where I did not feel musically upstaged by the bass who had been Mrs. K’s pet (and, by association, the pet of the drama director at the school), the bass who was sure he would end up on Broadway someday soon despite being slightly tone deaf and not having the range needed to be a true bass or true tenor.

Mr. Clark, near the end of the year, would give me a solo in the school Mass on commencement day (graduation). I sang for myself, mostly, but I sang for the pride of my family, and for the entire school and family members of my own graduating class. This was my statement to the school, my parting scene; for all it had done to me, I was leaving as its conqueror. Father Ambrose accompanied me on piano, matching my nervous beat (he could play the piano to match anyone else’s speed, whether singing or on another instrument) with solid, gentle chords that guided me to the end. I managed to do it without my voice breaking or mispronouncing the words. I knew I had fouled it up some in the beginning (having something stuck in your throat while you sing is not conducive to much of anything good), but nobody noticed. I still believe God manipulated their ears to how I should have sounded, not how I actually sang.

I left that school that day and have never been back. I don’t think I’ve been within 400 miles of the place, to be honest. Were I to go back I can count on two hands the people I’d want to see. There are many bad memories and many I can’t remember and the anxiety attack I’d have isn’t worth it. I avoid reunions and school gatherings in the area and have not talked to a person still at that school in well over a year.

I have no idea if the Glee Club still sings that song more than two years after I left. I do know from alumni bulletins that Father Ambrose and Mr. Clark are there and Mrs. K has not returned. Those Glee Club members who were freshmen during my last year will graduate this June, at which point the only people at that school who remember me will be members of the faculty.

The music to the song I have not been able to find except in my mind, so while I play it for myself you will have to imagine something majestic, relieving and cathartic. The words, which I have reproduced below, are still etched in my mind, though they do not come as quickly as they once did.

Read it slowly, for it is a poem that requires time, closed eyes and meditation to fully appreciate. And if you listen hard enough, you may just hear thirty teenage voices singing it to the accompaniment of a fifty-year-old piano masterfully played by a benevolent, gentle Father Ambrose.

I do.

And did those feet in ancient time
Walk upon England's mountains green?
And was the holy Lamb of God
On England's pleasant pastures seen?
And did the Countenance Divine
Shine forth upon our clouded hills?
And was Jerusalem builded here
Among these dark Satanic Mills?
Bring me my Bow of burning gold:
Bring me my Arrows of desire:
Bring me my Spear: O clouds unfold!
Bring me my Chariot of fire.
I shall not cease from Mental Fight
Nor shall my Sword sleep in my hand
Till we have built Jerusalem
In England's green and pleasant Land.
-- William Blake