By Rupert Ellsworthy, Music Ministry Correspondent

LOWER TAMSWORTH — For nearly four decades, the piano bench at Hollow Creek Fellowship Church was simply a place to sit. On Thursday, after a volunteer wiggled a butter knife under the lid for 45 minutes, it became an archaeological site.

The bench, which had been stuck shut since sometime in 1986, gave way during a routine fellowship hall cleanup. Inside, volunteers found 340 pieces of sheet music, a church bulletin dated March 9, 1986, two individually wrapped peppermints, a pencil sharpened down to the size of a thumbnail and a sealed envelope addressed "To Whoever Plays Next."

"We all just stood there," said music committee chair Delphine Okafor-Hatch, 64. "Nobody wanted to be the one to open the envelope. It felt like reading somebody's diary, if somebody's diary was about tempo."

The note, which the committee eventually opened with the full council present, was written by longtime pianist Esther Plumley, who served from 1958 to 1986 and is fondly remembered for playing every song at exactly the same speed. It read, in full: "Do not let them change the offertory. Also, the B above middle C sticks in damp weather. Pray about it."

The B above middle C does, in fact, still stick in damp weather.

The current pianist, Calvin Durst, 38, said the discovery explained a lot. "For eleven years I've been fighting that key every rainy Sunday and thinking it was me," he said. "Turns out I've been part of a 40-year struggle. It's honestly kind of moving."

The sheet music has proved harder to deal with. Roughly half of it is marked up in Plumley's tidy pencil, with notes like "slower than you think" and "Mr. Garrity will sing loud here, play louder." The other half appears to be the same arrangement of one Christmas song, photocopied 61 times.

"We don't know why there are 61," Okafor-Hatch said. "We have theories. None of them are good."

The committee has set up a folding table in the choir room to sort everything into three piles labeled Keep, Return to Bench and Ask Esther's Niece. The third pile is currently the largest.

The offertory question has caused the most discussion. Church records show the same offertory piece has been played every Sunday since at least 1986, and members say they had assumed it was simply a tradition. Some now worry that changing it would go against Plumley's wishes, while others point out that she also wrote "Pray about it" next to a sticky piano key, so the note may have been more general advice.

At a special meeting Sunday, the council voted 7-2 to keep the offertory as it is "for now," fix the B above middle C "eventually," and leave the two peppermints in the bench, where several members said they belong.

At press time, Durst had placed his own sealed envelope in the bench, addressed to the next pianist. It reportedly says only: "Bring a butter knife."