Bells

Not really being able to sing these days, my audio has somehow intensified. I hear things more keenly, pay attention to nuance, inflection, speed, volume, tone, timbre.



I heard a bell ringing yesterday... I was @ my GP's office and their fire alarm went off unexpectedly. When all had calmed down I was downright giddy letting my mind go through free associations..... because the bell there sounded identical to my recollection of the bell in high school that signalled the end of one subject and the mass exodus to the next... or to after school activities.



Growing up Roman Catholic, the automatic memory was the sanctus bells... still used in some anglo-catholic parishes to this day. From there it went (oh, what the heck, let me date myself) to the "Miss Francis' Ding-Dong School Bells" that my Aunt Betty gave my sister and I one Christmas. Letting a 6 and 4 year-old wave these things around the apartment that Christmas day lasted about 1 hour.... at which time my Mom confiscated the bells and they were returned sans clapper. Ah... the clarion bells on the United Methodist Church chiming out 'A Mighty Fortress is Our God'; the tiny bell with an ornate handle that was used for Easter dinner at a friend's family home by the head of the house to quiet the crowded jovial table for grace; the Jingle Bell strap that served as a doorbell at the home of another friend. Last, but not least, the sound of the approaching Good Humor truck during the summer months in our neighborhood. Like Pavlov's dogs, those bells would ring and I would begin to salivate, longing for a Creamsicle or a Brown Cow. The small truck would approach slowly, with it's inimitable beckoning cadance of a ring, like the Pied Piper, drawing all manner of child from each 3 to 1 family home streaming forth to the source of few - but prized - frozen delights. Those old trucks only had one little door in the back and the driver wore a very impressive change dispenser that chingled and jangled when he moved.



What things come to mind when you hear bells, or chimes? Send in your recollections to deaconj@geraniumfarm.org and I'll get them posted..... or add them to the comments below.



I was not there when all the bells across the country rang at the end of WWII. Were you? Share that with the rest of us Farmers, won't you? Thank you, Lord, for cymbals, bells, chimes and gongs! Let everything on earth bless the Lord!