On Valentine’s Day, at about 1 p.m., Panera Bread Bakery on West Street in Keene was bustling.

Sharon A. Marotta was sitting at a table with her husband, Joseph M. Marotta, and her daughter, 13-year-old Alexandra K. Mooers.

Only a few feet away, 11 men in white shirts and conspicuous red ties were sitting casually around their own table, sipping coffee and eating sandwiches.

Eventually, the men quietly congregated near the front entrance, then made their way back between the tables to Marotta’s spot, arranging themselves in a crescent.

And then they crooned “Let Me Call You Sweetheart.”

The lyrics lingered in the air, emerging in slow, smooth four-part harmony. Diners all around looked up from their mugs and sandwich trays, and smiled those sentimental upside-down smiles people wear at weddings.

When the song ended, one of the singers handed Sharon a rose and said, “Joe wanted you to have this.”

And then they sang another song, “The Story of the Rose.”

Sharon laughed. And she cried. At the same time. She wiped a tear from her eye through a wide smile. Though she was a little embarrassed, her eyes sparkled.

That’s not an unusual reaction when you’re visited by members of the Keene Cheshiremen barbershop chorus.

By the time they reached the Marottas, a core group of eight barbershop singers had visited eight locations, including Clark-Mortensen Agency Inc., Monadnock Waldorf School and Cheshire Medical Center. After they left Panera, they still had nine romantic stops to go.

Usually, the recipient of a singing valentine moves quickly through four stages: shock, embarrassment, resignation and joy, said choral director James Flanders.

“Rarely do we leave without somebody having a tear in their eye,” Flanders said.

But every stop is different, too.

At one house, the recipient of the singing valentine was in the shower.

At Home Depot in Keene, they harmonized for a construction worker in a hard hat. Even he had a tear in his eye before they were through, Flanders said.

They offer recipients optional hugs at the end of the serenade, and “they all take you up on it,” Flanders said.

Barbershop quartets have four singers, but can have up to eight, a double quartet. When the eight-some showed up at Panera’s to serenade Sharon, they ran into three more barbershop singers on their lunch break. So they teamed up, Flanders said.

“I thought it was very romantic,” said Sharon, who added it was a complete surprise.

The Keene Cheshiremen barbershop chorus has been around since 1953, but Flanders organized the singing valentines four years ago. Since then, the program has grown: In the first year, it had 25 takers; this year it had 150.

(This year) a singing valentine costs $45, and the money goes to charity and to the chorus’s music education programs.

To meet this year’s demand for singing valentines, the 30 members of the chorus split into six groups and spent all day Monday on the road — Brattleboro, Keene, Peterborough and towns in between.

The oldest singers are in their 70s and 80s. One of the youngest is 11-year-old Keene resident Christian Incandella, who got involved in the barbershoppers about a year and a half ago through his father, Jeff.

Christian, who looked quite dapper in his green suit jacket, said he enjoys the harmonizing.

“Before, I never really went over two parts,” he said. “When it’s four, that makes it much more fun and interesting.”

One of the newest chorus members is Rich S. Provencher, 29. He hadn’t been a singer before he decided to join the barbershop chorus this year.

“I like barbershop music, and I needed something that would be a stress release from work,” he said.

His group had a chance Monday to stop at Cheshire Medical Center and visit Provencher’s grandmother, Billie Rudolf, who had suffered a stroke the day before.

Now in her mid-80s, Rudolf’ was delighted, but Flanders said the grandfather’s reaction was what impressed him the most.

The grandfather is “hard as nails,” Flanders said, but he was hugging Provencher by the end of the visit.

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This page was last updated: Sunday January 16, 2011