Carolyncholland's Weblog

May 21, 2011

The River City Brass Band 2011

CAROLYN’S DAILY POSTS: 2011

THE RIVER CITY BRASS BAND 2011

     Last Sunday afternoon, May 14, 2011, my husband Monte and I drove over the mountain ridge to Johnstown, Pennsylvania. We made it just in time to run between raindrops to purchase a ticket to a presentation of the River City Brass at the University of Pittsburgh: Johnstown.

 

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     At an earlier point in my life, I didn’t particularly like brass instrumental music. Then I heard a Christmas song played on the trumpet, and I was won over. Today, the River City Brass band is one of my favorites.

     During the show I recalled my experience with a trumpet. When I was in fourth grade, my mother took me to rent an instrument. I wanted the clarinet, but there was none to be had. I ended up with a trumpet.

     At the time my older sister and I lived in a duplex apartment with my mother. Out of respect for the neighbors I had to practice my tunes by placing the trumpet opening in a pillow so as to mute the sound (actually, I was probably so bad at it that it was a good idea). I would rearrange my twin bed, plop myself down, position the trumpet, and blast away. If you’ve ever practiced playing a horn into a pillow, you know it is challenging.

     That wasn’t my only challenge. I lacked both (more…)

Judgment Day: May 21, 2011

Filed under: FEATURE STORIES,JOURNAL — carolyncholland @ 9:44 am
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CAROLYN’S COMPOSITIONS

JUDGMENT DAY: MAY 21, 2011

     It’s May 21, 2011. You may be reading my last post.

     At 6:00 p.m. the Rapture will kick off with a series of global earthquakes, which will start in the Pacific Rim. By nightfall, 200 million saved souls will depart this earth, ascending into heaven. And, of course, I will be among them.

     However, since God is the judge, I may be among the 97% of earth’s population left behind. In that event, you may have the opportunity to read more of my writing.

     Either way, Harold Camping, 89, wishes us a “blessed holiday” through a woman’s voice on his Family Radio Worldwide telephone. He’s not answering calls.

     So how am I spending my possible last day as an Earthling? It’s debatable. There are so many options. Brownsville (PA) is having a Market Streets Arts Festival. If we attend it would be an opportunity to see the area I’m writing about first hand, and to possibly seek out a historically interested person to review my writing on émigrés traveling to the Scioto area of Ohio in the 1790s, a trek following the Nemacolin Indian Trail (Braddock’s Road) to Uniontown, then a diversion to Redstone (Brownsville) on the Monongahela River. Since my husband Monte wants to go to Connellsville to have the oil changed in his car (he’s a creature of habit) it would be a good combination trip.

     Unfortunately, Monte also wants to be in Laurel Mountain Borough (our home community) where he is a council member in charge of the paved roads. Big machines arrived this week to do road work. If we don’t go to Brownsville, I will go into Ligonier to join a party celebrating a house moving—yes, they are actually moving a house. Then, in the afternoon, I will go to a writer’s critique group meeting.

     Either way, in the evening some women are gathering for a relaxing dinner event, scheduled at my house. At the time of the expected earthquakes, we should be gathering for an evening of women talk. Will some of us be raptured?

     Camping crunched numbers to determine that today, seven thousand years after Noah’s flood, would be doomsday. People in my region are doubtful. On Sunday, the Steel City Skeptics are planning a big “We’re Still Here Party” at the Church Brew Works in Lawrenceville (Pennsylvania). It is open to atheists, agnostics, secular free-thinkers, and all unbelievers, according to the group’s website, and will celebrate another blundered prophecy of the world’s end.

     I won’t be going. It’s not in my plans for my last day on Earth.  I’ll let you know what I did on May 21. For now, I must prepare for the day.

     Check back Monday. Perhaps this will not be my last post. Perhaps it will.

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ADDITIONAL READING:

The King James Bible: 400th Anniversary

www.carolyncholland2011.wordpress.com

www.intertwinedlove.wordpress.com

www.beanerywriters.wordpress.com

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