Tuesday, January 1, 2008

My 2007 Diary

1/1: A water pipe burst in the kitchen at home…thank God for the Shop-Vac…Happy New Year!
2/3: Our church service in Sheridan was cancelled due to 14” of snow and a 5-degree wind chill factor
2/6: Waited at Diane’s mother’s house for 8 hours waiting for the furnace to be fixed (feet are numb!)
2/21: Spent much of the day trying to get the ice off the roof of the house (a salt sock is salt in pantyhose?)
3/3: We visited ‘Gobbler’s Knob’ restaurant…they tell me Lorraine Cole practically lives there.
3/25: Found out that Eileen Gabel is a pretty great pianist.
4/1: ‘The Baaad Donkey’ kids musical was presented. Great job.
4/07: Had a “home and away” Easter cantata with the Cattaraugus Chorus.
5/07: I saw and heard David Golando’s middle school band in parade…great group!
6/8: The power was out for 17 hours…does that happen more in this area?
6/9: The B.B.B. Tuba Choir at S.U.M. w/Dr. Kate Levy & Riley conducting (WHAT A GREAT GROUP!)
6/24: Diane & I heard The Mormon Tabernacle Choir @ Chautauqua Institute…WOW!
7/1: The Patriotic cantata @ S.U.M. with the military group in uniform. Thanks Colonel Harrigan!
July: Great time @ ‘The Family Jam’ at Barb’s house
7/6: My niece’s wedding in Buffalo…1st time in 21 years all my siblings are together at one time!
7/15: The Community Chorus @ Cattaraugus Christian Camp…largest crowd we’ve ever performed for!
7/22: David Golando’s ‘Sax Time’ @ church…great group!
8/1: Played @ Chautauqua County Home…MAN IS IT HOT! ONLY THE RESIDENTS ARE COMFY!
8/4: Participated in the Silver Creek Village Wide Yard Sale…lots of lookers! Is our stuff junk?
8/13: Vacation Bible School @ our church – 1st use of the church video projector! Great week.
8/19: Church service @ Dunkirk Conference Ctr. (Is it always chilly & rainy when we come here?)
9/14: Chorus performs @ The Grape Festival…thank God it didn’t rain! How about that wind!
10/1: We had the roof replaced @ home…boy, it’s hard heaving everything into that dumpster
11/18: Our 18 voice Tuba choir hardly fits on the platform at the Westfield Assembly of God church
12/9: Chorus sings at St. Joe’s R.C. church in N.T. No one got lost or hurt! Got to see my former pastor!
12/16: Will the ‘Nor’eastern’ storm cancel Christmas cantata? Postponed! (Someone called me a wimp!)

Bud’s 2007 reflections…
How many times has Pastor Molly run, jumped, or skipped during a sermon? Is she the hardest working pastor in WNY? I miss seeing Alice & Neal. It’s great to have Lorraine Bailey with us. Carolyn Dobony seems to never miss a service. Will Steve Brennan be home this weekend? Wendy Gens has a great little ‘Angel.’ Lincoln looks great in his costume! Jan Delcamp takes a breath only once every 4 minutes while singing (great singer). Just when you think Riley isn’t paying attention, up pops his head between the pews. Thanks JoAnn & Terry Niebel. No one got lost during the ‘road rally’ but they really do have dirt roads around here! Boy, does Barb keep the church clean. Jeannine seems to never miss a cue during the service. The members of my Sunday school class are great! (I’m not really the “teacher") Charlie & Mary snuck a dog into my yard! Do I hear the sound of billiard balls upstairs?

Thanks Diane.

History of the Carols



“Auld Lang Syne”
Robert Burns, the most famous of Scottish poets, discovered the lyrics for “Auld Lang Syne” in the course of his travels about the Highland countryside. He wrote his publisher in 1791 that he heard these lyrics being sung by an old man to a “mediocre” tune but was sure they were good enough to deserve a better melody. That “mediocre” tune is not what we sing today. The now traditional one was used in ‘Rosina,’ an opera by William Shield, was first performed in London in 1783. Perhaps Shield knew it as a folksong. It appears somewhat altered, in his opera’s Overture, and later as an imitation of bagpipes. Somehow that tune crossed the Atlantic, where it became the marching song at the University of Virginia.
When bandleader Guy Lombardo programmed it there in 1932 with the “Auld Lang Syne” words (that include two stanzas from Burns’ adaptation of the ancient poem) as a closing number at a college dance, the students cheered in recognition of “their” tune. As a result, Lombardo decided to make it his regular closing number.
Today, the familiar music and words (the title translates literally as “old long since”) are sung as a farewell to the old year, a ritual of parting, in virtually all English-speaking countries. And for more than half a century, it was featured on Guy Lombardo and His Royal Canadians’ famous New Year’s Eve radio and television broadcasts, heard throughout most of the world.

It happened on January 1st…
1985 – New York State became the 1st state in the U.S. with a mandatory seat belt law
1971 – Tobacco ads totaling $20 million were banned from Television & radio
1966 – The final episode of ‘The Adventures of Ozzie & Harriet’ w/Rick Nelson filmed
1956 – Elvis Presley recorded ‘Heartbreak Hotel’ for RCA in Nashville
1946 – Emperor Hirohito of Japan announced he was not a god
1944 – Gen. Clark replaced Gen. Patton as commander of the 7th Army
1908 – The 1st “Ball Drop,” signaling the New Year, took place in New York City
1892 – Ellis Island was first opened as an immigration station near the Statue of Liberty
1863 – President Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation freeing slaves
404 – The last gladiator competition took place in Rome

Ref. RDM TimelinesOfHistory TanBible DmarieCapsule CBS.COM