On a late December 1959 afternoon, Paul and I bundled up two-and-a-half-year-old Kari and year-old Lori to go to the Capitol for the annual Madison Public School Christmas event.
The Capitol, adorned with a huge beautifully lit Balsam Fir in the center of the rotunda, captured the festive spirit.
Along with hundreds of others, we stood around the tree with our families waiting for the four o’clock program to begin.
The choral departments of West, Central and East High Schools gathered in the four marble arched cubicles above, plus a Nativity tableau, and angels standing still as statues. Trumpeters waited high above in the catwalk of the dome itself.
At four o’clock, with the sun setting, the carols we love began. They simply reverberated throughout the acoustically perfect marble structure. First, the music would originate from the West portico, then the North, the East, and finally the South. I would suppose it might have been our first experience with “surround sound.” We were mesmerized.
And then Kari, enchanted, cradled in her father’s arms, whispered, “Daddy, are we in heaven?”
