My old friend — well, not exactly “old” in years; no, maybe that too — the Rev. Charles M. Smith, is a man possessed of remarkable talents, not the least of which (for sure) is a marvelous bass-baritone voice.

He shared with the Downeast Seniors group, as well as with the Pamlico Chapter of ROMEO (“Retired Old Men Eating Out”), which gathers each Wednesday for fellowship as we break bread together, his story of being usurped from his regular national anthem singing duties at a Duke athletic event.

Here’s Charlie Mike’s story:

“All I wanted to do was watch Duke beat a basketball team wearing Carolina blue mercilessly. So I agreed to accept my church’s Head Usher’s request for the post-Christmas Duke-Johns Hopkins game.

“The Parkwood Athletic Association did that for all the Duke home games in the 1970s to make money for our youth sports program. But Ace, who was also the Head Usher for the Parkwood Athletic Association, frantically grabbed me before the tip-off, begging me to sing ‘The Star Spangled Banner’ as the one-fingered organist hired to entertain because the students were all home for Christmas couldn’t play it. So I did. And it went well. So well that the Athletic Director and the Sports Information Director met me as I was leaving the court and asked me to do it all the time.

“I thought quickly, as we were pretty poor and my wife was a full-time student at Carolina, and I said: ‘I’ll do it for 2 seats at half-court.’ They quickly agreed, and at the end of the season, they asked me to do it as well for the football games. This time I upped the ante asking for 4 seats in the old Press Box where I could take the whole family and enjoy all the Cokes, fried chicken and hot dogs we and our two kids could eat.

“So, a year or two later, my Wolfpack Club friends were delighting in telling their fellow State alums that their preacher was going to sing the anthem before the Wolfpack and the Blue Devils teed it up at Wallace Wade. I went to rehearse about an hour before kickoff per usual but the band director looked at me quizzically and said: ‘You’re not singing today. President Sanford has arranged a substitute.’

“So dejectedly I joined my family and gorged on free food. Well, just before time for the ‘Banner,’ an old Plymouth pulled up on the track, and out stepped a tall, African American woman in a full length fur coat who proceeded to my mike at mid-field. I wondered what my Wolfpack Club friends on the other side were thinking. But all ended well when they introduced Ella Fitzgerald, who Terry Sanford had asked at a dinner the previous evening to fill in for me.

“If you’re going to be upstaged, it’s not too bad if it’s someone like Ella.”

Maybe so, old friend. Personally, I’d rather have heard you.