When I selected the Groove for yesterday’s post, for me there was absolutely no question about the choice. My favorite Protestant hymn has always been “In the Garden” because it reminds me of happy days at summer camp in the 1950s where each day began after breakfast (weather permitting) at the outdoor stone chapel.
“In the Garden” was said to have been the favorite hymn of our camp’s director, a kindly man named George A. Cooper whom everyone just called “Coop.” Chapel was the only place I ever remember seeing the old gentleman when he wasn’t making the rounds of the camp in his WWII-era Jeep.
The pathways, roads and terrain of that camp still figure prominently in my dreams to this day, as well as that old man in his Jeep.
I only went back to the camp once as an adult, and I found it to have been a disturbing experience. So many things had changed there since I was a little kid. Coop, of course, was long dead and so many new buildings had been built that did not preserve the costly stone and rough-hewn beam rustic architectural style that I remembered so fondly from my youth.
But then, everything about childhood has changed and darkened since those days of innocence. Yet, no matter what version I ever hear, the old hymn always takes me back to those bright and perfect days.
۞
Groove of the Day
Listen to The Blackwood Brothers Quartet performing “In the Garden”
