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Growing up, singings were a part of my family’s life.

Some of them involved traveling groups that would come and visit our church or other nearby churches. They might be on Sunday afternoon or Sunday night. It might even be on Saturday nights. They might bring just a piano player, soundtracks or maybe a full band.

It might even be as simple as getting out the Church Hymnal and everyone sitting around the piano at the church or in the choir loft. They might call someone down to lead a song or two. It could be anything from page No. 2 to No. 400.

The last type of singing is something that our family would do at least once a year in honor of “Daddy Harden,” who was the song leader at my home church for nearly 50 years.

For this one Saturday afternoon, we’d get together around 2 or 3 in the afternoon in late August and sing for a couple of hours.

Some of the times, I was down there singing with them in the choir. As I got older into my teenage years, I was running the sound system at the church. Instead of singing with them, I put in a cassette tape and recorded the singings.

In our Church Hymnal, we would have many of the typical favorites that you’d find in almost any hymnal. That would be “Tis So Sweet to Trust in Jesus,” “When We All Get Together” and “Victory in Jesus.” It also had a few others that were more folksy type like “I’ll Fly Away” or “Heaven’s Jubilee.”

Of course, there were others that felt like they were adapted from drinking songs. One in particular is “I Will Slip Away Home” especially when you have some fermatas and grand pauses. Not that I’ve been in a lot of bars where I’ve seen that, but it’s something that I saw depicted in a lot of movies.

The hymnal also featured some more interesting tunes as well. One title that always stuck out to me was “The Royal Telephone.” I’m sure that song probably hasn’t aged that well over the years as it might be called “The Royal Smartphone” if they redid the song.

Also, when someone requested “I’m Winging My Way Back Home,” that would always bring out some of the more inventive ways of singing. For instance, my dad would attempt to sing the soprano and alto parts whenever they got the lead. At a few Christmases and Thanksgiving, my brother would get on the piano, Dad would take his solo, which caused a lot of laughter, especially for my nephews and my sister-in-law, Dasha, who hadn’t heard the song sang that way.

But at the end of the Harden singing, we would always close with “Amazing Grace” including a chorus of “praise God” at the end followed by a tag of “And when the battle’s over, we shall wear a crown…”

Seeing the Hymnfest at Old Cahawba this weekend makes me think of those singings. I doubt it will be exactly the same, but I can’t wait to participate in it this weekend.

Brent Maze is the publisher of The Selma Times-Journal. He can be reached at brent.maze@selmatimesjournal.com.