Back in 1994, VCCC member Hans Craig of Lenoir, North Carolina came to Los Angeles to visit me for about a week. We had a LOT of fun with vacuum cleaners and sight-seeing and visiting Stan Kann and Alex Taber. (Anyone know where Alex is btw? He seems to be M.I.A. again.......)

I was talking to someone about Hans and his visit out here came up. I have a very funny story about his trip out here. He wanted to come to my church with me Sunday morning to hear me play the organ.

I told him he would have an hour or so to kill before church started while I would be getting myself ready and then conducting a choir rehearsal. So he brought down a stack of Tennessee Ernie Ford tapes to listen to on the sanctuary audio system. (No, there IS no accounting for taste is there!)

I came in on the tail end of one of the tapes, and Hans was sitting there in Hillbilly Heaven, tapping his foot while listening to the nasal sound of his idol singing one of his favorite songs.

Thankfully, the tinkling, twanging music soon stopped on its own and I didn't think anymore about it.

Well, in a few minutes the service started and all was fine.

But then, during prayer time something just awful happened.

That church has an extended time of very quiet prayer and meditation, where people pray silently and sometimes stand and "lift their prayers" out loud.

A lady in the choir stood up and began making a very impassioned prayer, actually kinda going on and on as they sometimes do, you know, praying for every person they know, and some they don't! (I pray for my neighbor Sally's uncle's boss's wife who has the gout.......")

She was getting a bit emotional and actually starting to weep and wail as she was praying, when all of a sudden a merrily twanging guitar burst forth from the heavens -- "Dee Deedle Dee-Dee Deee, Deeee DEEEEEEEEEE," then the unmistakable voice of Tennessee Ernie Ford belting out, "I'm gonna git me a brand new cawrrr...." or whatever the lyrics were.

The organ console was on the opposite side of the sanctuary from the sound booth. So I had to go bolting across the chancel in front of the entire congregation, fly into the sound booth, and shut off the tape. When I very sheepishly came creeping back into the auditorium, cringing and feeling about a foot tall, both the pastor and the lady who had been praying gave me VERY withering looks!

I of course got the giggles --- I had to actually leave the room and go outside so I could laugh hysterically and get it out of my system. After a few minutes of just losing it outside I came back in, red-faced and teary-eyed from the laughter. Every time I'd look at Hans we'd both get to tittering again and almost start laughing out loud again.

Well, afterward, I figured out what had happened. The tape deck had an auto-loop function on it, so it would keep repeating over and over. The tape Hans had put in was not full -- only about one-half of one side had music on it.

When the last song he had taped was over, the tape was running but since it was blank, nothing was coming out of the sound system. It took about 45 minutes for the rest of that side to cycle through and then click over to the second blank side, and then click back again to the first side where the music was. That grim moment unfortunately coincided with "Prayer Time."

Somewhere I have a tape of that service (they always record them to send to shut-ins), and every time I put it in and listen to that spot I end up rolling on the floor again!