Tag Archives: vespers

Burgundy

j-r-practix-with-border-2

Burgundy: (n) a deep red color

I’ve spent much of my life wondering if I am focused or obsessive. It may be impossible to get an accurate meter from anyone else on the issue due to their prejudice. But let me let you decide.

When I was twelve years old I had a little singing group. We all ended up going to church camp together, and after several strategic “nags,” I was able to convince the counselor to allow us to sing an a capella number before vespers.

Now, the evening vespers time at this particular church camp was about a half-mile hike up a big hill.

I bring this into the conversation because I had decided that our singing group should dress up for the occasion in these new shirts we had purchased, which were deep burgundy in color, and made out of some sort of acetate that resembled velvet. They were also long-sleeved.

The day arrived for us to sing, and it was about 90 degrees outside, but by the time of vespers, it had gloriously cooled to 85.

My friends wanted to wear t-shirts and shorts, but I insisted that we maintain our plan and climb the huge hill in our burgundy, long-sleeved, unforgiving shirts.

Being the largest member of our group, I labored, I wheezed, I panted, and I perspired like a man on the gallows.

When I got to the top and it was time to sing, I spent the entire song wiping my face with my hand and dropping the moisture to the ground beneath me. (One of my buddies got so warm that he swooned. Fortunately, he was bolstered by the baritone.)

The other kids looked on with a combination of amusement and admiration. We finished our song and our tenor screamed aloud, “I can’t take it anymore!” and ripped his shirt off, casting it to the side, sitting with his naked top, much to the chagrin of a nearby counselor.

Needless to say, I received a lecture the following day, from several members of the staff, about appropriate attire for vespers.

To this day, I cannot see the color burgundy without breaking out into a cold sweat.

 

Donate ButtonThank you for enjoying Words from Dic(tionary) —  J.R. Practix 

 

 

Bugle

j-r-practix-with-border-2

Bugle: (n) a brass instrument like a small trumpet, typically without valves

The reason “silence is golden” is that talking ends up costing you so much that you can go bankrupt.

I learned this as a young boy when I went to church camp. I had just begun playing trumpet in the junior high band and had miracuDictionary Blously won first chair, so was over-confident and convinced I was some sort of great trumpet player. (I could mention names but since they’re all dead and gone, you would not remember them anyway.)

Arriving at church camp, one of the counselors pulled an old bugle out of a closet. It was once used at the facility to awaken the camp to the morning Reveille.

He thought it would be rather clever to continue the tradition, and when he asked if anyone played the bugle, my hand shot straight up in the air and I volunteered. Actually I volunteered for two separate missions: 1) being the first one to wake up in the morning, and 2) playing a horn which has no valves and therefore demands that your mouth provide the impetus for pitch.

I had never played a bugle.

So I went off to a wooded section of the camp, far from everybody, and attempted to blow it. I don’t know if it was just that the instrument was old and dented, or if bugles are secretly implements of torture, but it took everything I had to get a sound out of it, and felt like I had deposited my lung into the mechanism.

That night at vespers, the counselor announced that I would be playing bugle in the morning to wake everyone up.

And wake them up I did.

But it did not sound like the traditional tune but rather, the mating call of the Canadian goose. Let me add this detail–the Canadian goose if he had been wounded by buckshot.

The first day everyone encouraged me and said it was delightful.

The second day, no one said anything to me.

The third day, I began to get a series of frowns and a couple of nasty notes on my bunk pillow.

And amazingly, when I rose on the fourth morning, the bugle was missing.

We searched the entire campgrounds diligently–or at least it appeared we did–and the bugle was never found.

Everyone acted disappointed.

I don’t think they were.

I actually thought, on Day 3, that at one point I played a note.

Donate ButtonThank you for enjoying Words from Dic(tionary) —  J.R. Practix