Call it destiny. Two men stranded in Kansas City when a storm closed the airport met in a hotel lobby, engaged in conversation, and – go figure – discovered they each had profound worries about the future of the barbershop quartet. This was not just empty lamenting on the part of Owen C. Cash and Rupert I. Hall; these founding fathers acted, and the Society for the Preservation and Encouragement of Barber Shop Quartet Singing in America was born. They wrote a letter that became a mission statement:
“In this age of dictators and government control of everything, about the only privilege guaranteed by the Bill of Rights not in some way supervised or directed is the art of barbershop quartet singing. Without a doubt, we still have the right of peaceable assembly which, we are advised by competent legal authority, includes quartet singing.
“The writers have, for a long time, thought that something should be done to encourage the enjoyment of this last remaining vestige of human liberty. Therefore, we have decided to hold a songfest on the roof garden of the Tulsa Club on Monday, April 11, 1938, at 6:30 pm.”
Twenty-six men attended that first rooftop meeting. Attendance at subsequent meetings multiplied rapidly, and at the third meeting, 150 harmonizers stopped traffic on the street below. A reporter for the Tulsa Daily World put the story on the national news wires and the rest is history.
Today the Society for the Preservation and Encouragement of Barber Shop Quartet Singing in America (SPEBSQSA, as it’s more familiarly known) has 25,000 members,. That acronym SPEBSQSA was the founders’ way of demonstrating that one could be a barbershop quartet enthusiast and still have a sense of humor; it was a parody of the New Deal’s “alphabet soup” of acronyms, and the society has said “attempts to pronounce it are discouraged.”
Wretched Richard’s Little Literary Lessons — No. 7
Imagery
img·ery ˈi-mij-rē, -mi-jə-
A literary device in which the author uses words and phrases to create “mental images” that help the reader better imagine the world the author has created.
With Huey at the wheel, South Miami, Key Largo and Marathon had been blurs in a landscape littered with condominiums and palm trees and then longer and longer stretches looking out to sea. Squadrons of pelicans flying in Blue Angel formation patrolled the waters offshore. Occasionally 
one would break ranks and swoop down to make an arrest. The perp quickly disappeared into the pelican’s private holding tank, demanding perhaps a phone call to his lawyer. But he was quickly swallowed without benefit of counsel like so much seafood. A large billboard urged them to “go all the way” to Key West, and Huey announced that they would make it in time for the sunset.
Put yourself in the picture: Voodoo Love Song
Wretched Richard's Almanac 