Drifting … drift … drift
just happens this time of year I t – that feeling of drifting through the days.
We had Christmas service at the church, everyone feeling the spirit of the season, with everyone sharing what they are up to, including baking, cooking, trimming the tree.
I don’t cook, myself; only, I am an excellent eater. Everyone is good at something, and that is one of my particular fortes, as they say.
As to my reading stack, sometime back gave my library of Inspector Maigret detective series books away to a friend, who I found out was also a fan. So, now I’m reading Agatha Christie, frontto- back – that is, her bibliography by date. It will be a while until I’ve finished with that particular project.
Only, I’m not in a rush. Savoring means taking your time. It has to be done right.
Had a writer stop in the other day and we talked about the craft. Plot, characters, setting and the like. Reminds me of the meme I saw the other day: Question: “What has 15 actors, 4 settings, 2 writers and 1 plot?
Answer: “A Hallmark Channel movie And I have been fast forwarding past every channel where one might even conceivably come up, believe me. Always found that those Hallmark things have music that is way too loud, actors that are hammier than a roast pig at the Christmas table.
Yet, happened to catch the tail-end of an old Hollywood-fare movie the other day – with a title I never heard of, but with the typical cast of the usual bit-actor suspects, and with Claude Rains in the lead.
Was titled, “Daughters Courageous,” a 1939 flick. Pretty impressive and out-there for a plot of a ne’er-do-well father who tries to get back in the graces of a family he had walked out on, years previously.
Once in a while, you find a pearl. But, then, as the saying goes: “Pearls don’t lie on the seashore; if you want one, you must dive for it.” But, there a-r-e pearls out there for the taking. For instance, our favorite restaurant. We have hit the place several times in the last couple weeks, and see friends there like, always. They have spaghetti and lasagna to die for, blackened catfish for the asking, fried fish? But, of course! Then there are the baked potatoes that are always perfectly-plump (not micro-waved, but prepared properly) with no black spots, and my all-time favorite: Chicken filly sandwiches – with enough cheese to make you a member of the split-chest club, guaranteed to fill up your arteries most satisfactorily. But, what a way to go, right?
And, next to Facebook, a great place to catch up on the local gossip out there.
Then, there’s Amazon.com. Well, there would be, wouldn’t there?
Is there anything under the sun that you can’t order on Amazon? Maybe forgiveness for your sins? For that you have to go to Jesus.
But, everything else? Oh, yeah. We’re ordered every thing from soup-to-nuts from them lately. I think the only reason my wife didn’t order our new bed mattress from them too, is that they couldn’t make it fit into our mailbox.
You hear folks saying, “Oh, right … we always have the UPS driver rolling up in our driveway with a package.”
I tell them, “That’s nothing. I use Amazon so much that I know the UPS delivery guy by his first name, and we’re going hunting for ducks this week down at the blind.”
‘Course, I’m just kidding. If I was real-ly shooting at things, it would be worse than Mr. Magoo out there taking pot-shots at anything that moved, and my insurance rates would bust me out!
Yet, even at this time of year, projects come along.
Easter is approaching, and I came across a composer who is putting together a library of work that is astonishing to me. For instance, a few years back, found a set of piano settings of hymns and the like that surprised me to no end – that was the Fred Bock series. Now, finding this new gem … this pearl … among the literature of choral works. It is at once, tightly arranged, carefully scripted with the message of the gospel and perfect for church performance.
So good, indeed, that I found a Christmas cantata for next year from the same composer and immediately ordered a copy and cd for listening.
His name is Joseph M. Martin, if you are interested in his work. I am using the cantatas where he is taking older Celtic music and adding modern verse; he did a few of them – the others, not so much. They are only new arrangements of modern hymns and such … so, nah, pass!
It has been such a challenge since Benson Music Company crashed and went out of business. They were like the Fort Knox of the Christian music world. Which makes it hard to make up ground. But, live and learn.
Oh, well, that’s the way it goes, as they say.
Out with the old, in with the new … like the new year.
There’s always that – looking ahead to 2025.
But, until then there’s more learning and lifting to do.
And drifting.
Robert L. Hall
The Wordaholic
