What Gourd Is This?
There’s going to be something referred to as “Pumpkin Caroling” at work on Friday. My immediate thought is that some well-meaning headcases will gather together and perkily sing modified Christmas carols to a pyramid of pumpkins, but who knows.
I’m torn. I want to see this; I want to run away in fear.
I mean, is this a thing? Has it been going on for years and I’m just now hearing about it?
Maybe they’ll all have pumpkins on their heads while they sing. That might be interesting.
This reminds me of one of the most excruciating workplace experiences I’ve ever had, and since it has crept back into my consciousness, you get to experience it too. In a former job, a coworker was about to become a father, so our manager, a terrible, horrible, and painfully awkward woman, took it upon herself to rewrite some song–I don’t remember which one–that she thought we would all sing at the (classic) conference room baby shower.
Terrible.
Nobody liked him much, and everybody hated her. What she imagined would be some adorable Hallmark moment was instead a funereal nightmare that went on for what seemed like hours. People avoided eye contact while she led us the pitiful singing her raspy, tuneless warbling. I think a little piece of me died that day. I suspect another little piece of me will die on Friday. Stay tuned.
First chair
I was in the band in high school.
Does that surprise you? It surprises me, and I there for it. In fact, I was in band for six years total and had the same director, Mr. Freeman, for all those years. Mr. Freeman liked me. I don’t know why. I must have been incredibly frustrating for him. There I was, possessed of all sorts of raw talent and a noticeable lack of ambition in equal parts. I could play well but didn’t like to practice. I never really learned to breathe properly but still pulled off good performances. I usually memorized the entire piece by the third time through it and so didn’t turn the pages when he really needed us to follow along and do that.
All sixth graders in the county were given some sort of assessment at the end of the year to see if they have any musical ability. I hadn’t given it a second though so when I was asked if I wanted to be in band, I said sure, and when I was asked what I wanted to play, I said flute because it was small and easy to carry. Also, no reeds.
I don’t remember much about those six years oddly enough. I remember becoming first chair fairly quickly and from there on being either first, second, or third, which might have bothered other people but didn’t bother me. I remember that my neighbor who was a senior when I was in 8th grade, started leaning on me to think about trying out for Drum Major when I got to high school. I could not imagine anything worse, really, and I never considered it, but Mr. Freeman never gave up on this baffling dream until I finally ran out of opportunities to avoid trying out and he realized I truly wasn’t interested.
What was he thinking, I wonder? I have always wondered. Because I am such an optimist, I suspect I made him so angry with my lack of discipline but annoying ability to perform when it mattered, that he wanted me to stop performing completely since I was a bad example. In middle school, whenever he was out and we had a substitute teacher, he left instructions that I be the director, which I hated. When we got to marching band in high school, he made me right-hand guide, which I also hated.
But I liked being in the band. Even though we were a small band at a poor high school in western North Carolina, we did okay, and sometimes placed well at competitions, and I liked being in the middle of all that music, no matter how pedestrian, that was being made. I always tended to pick apart music in my mind, sorting out the various layers and parts, so being in a band allowed me to indulge in that in real time.
Mr. Freeman was a good man, and a talented musician. I don’t know how he stood us sometimes and I wonder what he planned to do with his career. Did he mean to spend his adult life teaching truculent adolescents to play Stars and Stripes Forever? Probably not. But he did do just that and he did it with remarkable patience and skill. Teenagers are pretty wretched people sometimes, thoughtless and self-absorbed. It’s only now, 20 years later, that I realize how much I’d like to thank him for that remarkable patience and everything he taught me.
Make a big noise
It took me a minute to isolate the source of the sound, a rhythmic chant among the shrieks and yells of the exuberant kids running around all over the place. Sitting in a circle on a raised platform section of one of those ubiquitous primary-colored plastic playground sets was a group of boys, maybe 4th graders, clapping their hands and slapping their legs while chanting, “We will, we will…ROCK YOU.”
Jesus by the dashboard lights
trasherati: My goddamn driveway sounds like a tent revival right now.
jagosaurus: Perfect. Also, what?
trasherati: The nurse wheeled mom out to the driveway so they could listen to her gospel CD. She is currently standing by Mom tapping on her arm in time with the gospel music, while they both stare off into the woods.
jagosaurus: Contemplating the lord.
jagosaurus: What manner of gospel?
trasherati: The home grown kind.
jagosaurus: Oh, yeah. The stack of CDs on the counter in the diner. They’re usually sandwiched between the box of nickel York Peppermint Patties and the fund raising jar for the crippled high school football player.
trasherati: Dude, seriously…I can hear it back here in the office.
jagosaurus: Hahahahahahaha. You should call me so I can hear it too. It won’t affect me.
trasherati: Thank god I’m not on a conference call – they’d all be saved.
jagosaurus: And moved by the power of the lord.
trasherati: Okay, I’m putting you on speakerphone.
jagosaurus: Um. Wow.
trasherati: Hey, you know…Mom might get up and start walking again.
jagosaurus: So approximately how many dogs are sitting around the car right now? Is Rudy howling yet?
trasherati: 4, maybe 5.
trasherati: If this goes on much longer, every holy roller within 50 miles will start heading this way, trudging up my driveway.
jagosaurus: Yeah, you look out and see them amassed there in your yard. Like zombies. Zombies for Jesus. In your yard. …This would only happen in [redacted] county.
Songbird
One security guard was patrolling the Memorial entrance at Arlington National Cemetery today. Despite the cold and wind, a few tourists straggled through the area, crossing the memorial bridge, walking among different sections of the cemetery, heading to and from the metro. Mostly it was deserted. The security guard spent most of his time pacing, hands in the pockets of his large black overcoat, and singing. Occasionally he would hit a particularly enthusiastic passage and belt it out while flapping his arms, his hands still in his pockets. The way his coat opened and closed looked like nothing so much as a pair of wings.
How you know your friends really get you.
Jagosaurus: If we ever form a band, I think we should call it Air Biscuits.
Marigoldie: That would be great. We’d be an acoustic singer/songwriter duo. I’d sit on a stool onstage, playing and singing, and you’d harmonize into a microphone backstage somewhere.
Jagosaurus: Perfect.
