So I threw on a little Vince Guaraldi Trio today to get in the Christmas mood – that would be music from “A Charlie Brown Christmas”. You know the song “Skating”? The one that starts out going [start with a high pitched voice and go lower] “da duh da da da, da duh da da da, da duh da da da, duuum… duuumm… duummm….” Yeah, anyways, nothing gets you in the holiday festive spirit more than hearing that song. For me it calls to mind images of being younger, all bundled up in the blue snowpants, going outside in the freezing cold of winter with my orange plastic sled, and those mittens that didn’t quite cover the skin on my wrists at the end of my jacket. I will forever have little stripes of frostbite across my wrists. Not to mention it gets dark at like 2:30 in the afternoon during winter in Minnesota, so I was always racing home to go sledding in the pitch black of night… err, afternoon.
“Skating” also calls to mind other memories, namely, handbell choir in highschool. Ah yes, handbell choir. Looking back on it, it feels so odd that I was actually in a handbell choir – just the sound of it seems so… girly. For some reason it wasn’t though. Everyone who was anyone and could count to 4 was in our youth handbell choir at good ol’ Evangel UMC. Those who could only count to 3 played the bells in the bass cleff, because they only had to ring them once or twice a measure. We were pretty awesome though. We were, in fact, the most stellar youth handbell choir out of Southern Minnesota. We showed up many an adult handbell choirs in our day.
Anyways, to make what should have been a short story long, our senior year in high school we played the song “Skating” in rockin’ handbell style. It was amazing, and hilarious, and one of the oddest things to ever resonate from the tip of a hinged plastic clapper.
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Every darn time I am home, Mike Rolfs still talks about how he added "Tim-style" to the bell piece for that day... oh my, some things never die. Although in all honesty, if I lived in Rochester, I'd play bells still. I don't know how or why, but it truly WAS fun. And Joanne is easily the best bell choir director in the history of man. It feels so dorky talking about this...but it really was cool.
what the crap is "Tim-style"?
Remember the "Linus and Lucy" tune section of the Charlie Brown Christmas bell piece? The climax of the song has this little part and I was the high bells...so I'd ring my part by flailing the bell like crazy and everyone laughed...oh nevermind.
Side note: "what the crap" should be added to the "Christian-ese" dictionary.
funny, funny - i remember.
you should offer a definition for it to be added to the Christian-ese dictionary...
well, the tough part there is that the definition would not be appropriate to print in a Christian publication...another Christian "substitute" word...I just find it hilarious how many Christians use that phrase
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