On New Year's Day, PBS always broadcasts a concert of waltzes by the Vienna Philharmonic. Years ago, it was hosted by Walter Cronkite and lately by Alec Baldwin.
This year it will be more meaningful to me because I will be there...at least in my imagination.
I've been walking on a map for decades now, marking the miles I walk each week on maps. I began in Seymour, headed west and kept on going. My trek has taken me south to Texas, west to California, up to Alaska, across the Bering Strait to Siberia and all across Russia into Europe. As of today, I have 29 miles to walk to reach the center of Vienna.
If I average a mere two miles a day, figuring breaks for holidays and bad weather, I should arrive in Vienna in time to enjoy the concert. I call that timing.
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A Seymourite informed me that people are angry with me this year, but assured me that he was defending me. My great crime? The lack of a Christmas concert this year.
For over twenty years, I worked on an ecumenical Christmas concert with around 100 singers. I began working on it in August all the way through the concert and beyond. I was the chair, the publicist, the stage manager and the treasurer. We gave wonderful concerts and gave thousands of dollars to our local nursing home.
In time, we aged, dwindled and finally called it quits. At that point, I revived the United Methodist Concert and that went on for a few more years. In May I quit as choir director and that was that. No concert in Seymour this year.
What bothers me is that after thirty years of volunteer work, I am getting not thank-yous, but blame for not continuing to work on all the projects from tree planting to putting up posters. I am 68 and intend to finish my life as a writer.
The way I see it, if the community needs that a concert, someone else should step up and take over the task.
This year it will be more meaningful to me because I will be there...at least in my imagination.
I've been walking on a map for decades now, marking the miles I walk each week on maps. I began in Seymour, headed west and kept on going. My trek has taken me south to Texas, west to California, up to Alaska, across the Bering Strait to Siberia and all across Russia into Europe. As of today, I have 29 miles to walk to reach the center of Vienna.
If I average a mere two miles a day, figuring breaks for holidays and bad weather, I should arrive in Vienna in time to enjoy the concert. I call that timing.
-----
A Seymourite informed me that people are angry with me this year, but assured me that he was defending me. My great crime? The lack of a Christmas concert this year.
For over twenty years, I worked on an ecumenical Christmas concert with around 100 singers. I began working on it in August all the way through the concert and beyond. I was the chair, the publicist, the stage manager and the treasurer. We gave wonderful concerts and gave thousands of dollars to our local nursing home.
In time, we aged, dwindled and finally called it quits. At that point, I revived the United Methodist Concert and that went on for a few more years. In May I quit as choir director and that was that. No concert in Seymour this year.
What bothers me is that after thirty years of volunteer work, I am getting not thank-yous, but blame for not continuing to work on all the projects from tree planting to putting up posters. I am 68 and intend to finish my life as a writer.
The way I see it, if the community needs that a concert, someone else should step up and take over the task.
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