On flouting open container laws, quality time with Mom, and testing the boundaries of church music (vol. xxix, no. 2)

Dear Family,

For Christmas, I gave Crystal one of those overpriced “Adventure Bucket List” things they sell on Facebook to people with no impulse control. Maybe you’ve seen the ads. It’s basically a box of 50 large scratch-off cards — kind of like the lottery tickets they sell at gas stations, except instead of winning money (or almost winning money), you “win” an idea for an outing. Despite living in an interesting and (I think) beautiful place, we often struggle to come up with things to do. I thought this would help.

But the week after Christmas was Sophie’s wedding, the week after that was Crystal’s surgery, and the weeks since then have been Crystal’s recovery. This month was our first real chance to take the box of cards out for a spin. February isn’t the greatest month for most outdoor activities around here, and Crystal isn’t up for anything especially strenuous just yet, and so we chose a card that hinted at something indoors with minimal walking.

We scratched off a trip to something called the “Rage Room” in Glen Burnie — basically a place where you pay to destroy stuff. A supervised adult temper tantrum with safety gear where they give you a baseball bat, crowbar, sledgehammer, or whatever, and you take out your rage on dishes, old TVs, printers, glassware, and other junk provided by the business.

While it is true that I have never owned a TV, printer or computer that I have not, at one time or another, wanted to smash, it’s not a sentiment that I carry around with me all the time. And even if I had just watched a particularly frustrating sporting event and was feeling inclined to take a Louisville Slugger to the TV screen, it’s unlikely that the ensuing rage would survive a drive all the way out to Glen Burnie.

In other words, this activity was not something that Crystal and I were itching to do. And after some debate (surprisingly, it actually required debate), we ultimately concluded that the fact that we had scratched off the card did not actually obligate us to do the activity.

And so we decided to clean the basement instead.

If you have not seen our basement, roughly three-quarters of it can charitably be characterized as “finished.” Half of it — referred to by Grace’s friends as “the Gracement” — is the closest thing we have to a family room (large sofa, multiple dollhouses, Peloton, treadmill, non-functional gas fireplace, board game collection, one of our two pianos, and our biggest TV — which is probably smaller than your biggest TV). Half of the remaining space is a spare bedroom (and attached bathroom that I don’t think the county knows about — shhh). The remaining quarter of the basement is a “storage area” where junk has been slowly accumulating since the waning days of the Clinton administration.

After spending a good chunk of President’s Day weekend in the storage area, we didn’t get it done, but we made enough progress to feel like we’d accomplished something. A lot of what made its way into the four contractor bags’ worth of trash was the remnants of various home improvement projects (some successful, some not) — building materials acquired decades ago, before Crystal came to the sad realization that she was the handy one in our marriage.

Evidence of our progress is that we can now reach the water shutoff valve for the house without first having to spend five minutes either pulling a freezer out of the way or clearing off multiple shelves full of junk. So that’s probably good.

I’m already looking forward to whatever home improvement project the adventure bucket list scratch-off box leads us to next.

Valentine’s Day in the City of Brotherly Love … with Mom

The Glen Burnie rage room reminded me of an article I’d seen several years ago about a similar place the Philadelphia Flyers opened inside their home arena for fans to vent their frustration after a tough loss.

I don’t care all that much about hockey or the Flyers, but my longsuffering Eagles fandom, which began in 1979 when we moved from Maryland to South Jersey, helps me relate. I am not prone to physical violence when things don’t go our way, but I do get upset and sometimes shout ill-considered things, regardless of whether anyone is actually around to hear them.

Eagles playoff games have a way of amplifying this tendency, and it’s really better for my mental health if I don’t watch them alone. Ideally, I would watch them with my brothers, but unlike me, both Grant and Andrew serve in church positions that often keep them busy on Sunday afternoons. They were both attending a stake council meeting during the Eagles’ Wild Card round game against the Packers. This relegated me to the Gracement, where I watched most of it by myself, until Crystal was kind enough to come down and keep me company during the second half.

Grant and Andrew were tied up with church meetings again the following week when the Eagles played the Rams in the Divisional round. And so I drove up to Mom’s house (in the snow) and watched with her and Pete. (Dad popped in occasionally, but let’s face it: Mom has always been the bigger football fan. A staple of Sunday afternoons in the fall growing up was watching the Eagles with Mom while Dad was off somewhere being a church leader — Grant and Andrew come by it naturally.)

Watching with Mom was so much fun that I resolved afterwards never to watch another Eagles playoff game without her.

The week after that was the NFC Championship game against Washington. All of us (including Mom) gathered at Andrew’s house. Grant had yet another church meeting and had to leave at halftime. (He showed up in a suit and actually got a phone call from the Area Seventy in the middle of the first half.)

We went to Grant’s house for the Super Bowl (which means I wound up watching the Eagles’ four playoff games in four different houses). Grant and Andrew didn’t have any church responsibilities, but the couple who lead the Washington D.C. North Mission (Chiefs fans from Nebraska) came over for the third year in a row, so I guess church came to us.

I didn’t take any pictures of that gathering (others did) but I’m pretty sure we won. (Actually, I’m pretty sure we were up 34-0 before the Chiefs even had the ball on our half of the field.) Probably the most fun I’ve ever had watching a football game.

The victory parade was the following Friday — Valentine’s Day.

Somehow, I talked Mom into coming with me up to Philly for the experience. We took regular Amtrak (I only ride the Acela when someone else is paying — but even on the slower train, it’s only a 90-minute trip).

Roughly 95 percent of the people waiting on the northbound train platform at BWI — an airport situated at the nexus between Baltimore Ravens and Washington Commanders country — were clad in various shades of Eagles green. A confused New York-bound passenger asked us what was going on. “I thought the game was last weekend,” she said.

Indeed it was.

Thirtieth Street Station in Philadelphia was our portal to a city awash in palpable jubilation. Every 30 seconds or so, someone in a different corner of the station started an “E-A-G-L-E-S, EAGLES!” chant, which echoed around the terminal. No sooner would one finish than someone, somewhere else, would begin anew.

There’s something thrilling about being in a crowded city where everyone is happy. Even when a lot of the happiness is clearly alcohol fueled. Like most civilized places, and perhaps contrary to what you might have guessed, the city of Philadelphia prohibits open containers of alcohol on streets, sidewalks and alleys (among other public places). I don’t know how strictly police enforce that law ordinarily, but no one was enforcing it on the day of the parade. (I would imagine the city also has ordinances against climbing and standing on top of statues, monuments, bus stops, and other structures. Those were not being enforced either.)

After emerging from the train station, Mom and I walked across the Schuylkill River and followed the sea of green a mile or so down Market Street to City Hall.

The throng lining the parade route at City Hall was a least 12 deep, and so we tush-pushed/brotherly-shoved our way through the mob and down the Ben Franklin Parkway to Logan Square — about halfway to the Art Museum, next to the Franklin Institute and across from the temple. I’m not sure whether the temple was open (I’m guessing not) but there were at least two people standing on the roof of it, and I had to wonder how they got up there.

We spent a couple of hours there waiting for the parade to reach us. Meanwhile, everyone kept drinking. This made some people friendlier and others more annoying.

Among the more annoying people was the young woman trying to dance to the loud music despite being too impaired to stand up straight. She swayed and flailed a lot and kept crashing into us, pausing only to fish yet another vodka seltzer out of her backpack. By this point, we were packed in too tightly to move anywhere and so we kind of just had to stand there and take it. Watching her try to hold her camera steady was amusing, though.

The parade itself was both fun and a little anticlimactic. The most entertaining element was just being part of all the revelry.

Some of the empty beer cans made their way into trash cans. But most didn’t.

Once the parade went by, we did not follow the crowd down to the Art Museum for the ceremony and all the speeches. (I don’t have much use for speeches. I get enough of that at church.) Besides, it was freezing, and Mom and I had had about enough of being outside by then, and so we started making our way back to the train station.

We stopped for a late lunch at DuJour on Market Street. We both had hot soup and the Saquon Barkley chicken panini, which was not as good as it sounded.

All in all, it was a fun day to cap a really fun playoff season with my mommy. I’m already looking forward to next season, assuming my church responsibilities will continue allowing me to enjoy it.

Church, Music

As I tell people all the time, if I could somehow manage to keep my current portfolio of church callings for the rest of my life, I would die with a smile.

As of two Sundays ago, I now serve in five official church capacities. Adding them all together, I am still less busy than Crystal in her one church job (Relief Society president), than Grant in his one church job (stake president), and probably even than Andrew in his one church job (high councillor/stake young men president).

My five jobs are (in no particular order):

• Temple ordinance worker
• Sunday school teacher (to high school kids)
• Ward organist
• Primary pianist (on the 2nd and 4th Sundays, when there’s no Sunday school for me to teach)
• (as of two Sundays ago) Stake music coordinator

In other words, I am either completely free from or have unfettered control over the two things at church that I am most likely to complain about: 1) Sunday afternoon/evening meetings, and 2) the tempo at which hymns are sung.¹

I honestly can’t think of a time when I’ve been happier at church. Not that I’ve ever been truly unhappy at church, but I don’t think it can get better than this. (And hopefully I didn’t just jinx it.)

Incidentally, Dad mentioned in his letter that my brother called me as the stake music coordinator despite my having played “Fly, Eagles, Fly” during sacrament meeting prelude on Super Bowl Sunday.

That is completely untrue.

It was during sacrament meeting prelude on the morning of the NFC Championship (against Washington, two weeks before the Super Bowl) that I played it. Grant was visiting our ward that day, and I switched over to it while he was taking his seat on the stand. But I don’t think he even noticed. I have demonstrated on numerous occasions that virtually any tune can sound like church music when played in a stately manner on an organ.²

I’m not sure how I’ve managed to hoover up all of these music callings for myself as I am not even close to being the most talented musician in my ward (let alone stake). I had the privilege of performing with a few of these more talented members at a chili cook-off in Olney (where my parents and three of my brothers go to church) on the night before the Super Bowl (which is why I’m wearing an Eagles jersey — as I am in every other picture of myself in this letter). Here are a couple of our numbers (and listen to those fiddlers!):

Speaking of talented people, Grace gets paid (paid like, actual cash money — not the unspendable compensation we sometimes speak of at church) to sing in the choir at the Methodist church near her campus in Buena Vista. She also recently discovered the beauty of Evensong at the nearby Grace Episcopal Church — a taste for which she shares with her Willis grandfather. It sounds like she’s singing more in other churches these days than in her own, but I guess that’s okay.

Speaking of Grace Episcopal Church, Grace is there again this weekend performing in Suor Angelica, a Puccini opera that I am not familiar with. So, if you’re up for a mini last-minute weekend road trip:

I thought I was reasonably well versed in Puccini’s oeuvre, but I guess I just know the four operas of his that everybody knows (La bohème, Tosca, Butterfly and Turandot). It shouldn’t surprise me that he wrote other stuff, too.

If a drive to Lexington is too much, then you should definitely circle the last weekend of March, when the Washington DC Temple Choir and Orchestra will present Lamb of God — on Saturday night in Virginia and on Sunday night at 500 Randolph Road, where we go to church. We need to remove the first three rows of pews to make room for the orchestra, so arrive early for good seats.

I was not familiar with this work, either. But it seems like everyone I sing with has performed it before, which is impressive since it’s only about a dozen or so years old (I think that’s right — the composer is several years younger than I am, so it can’t be very old).

But it’s magnificent — incredibly moving and powerful. It is taking considerable practice for me to learn to sing it without crying. And I’m not quite there yet.

Anyway, I know I always invite you to our concerts, but I don’t usually resort to all caps. YOU SHOULD COME TO THIS! I hope you can make it.

Love,
Tim

1. I do try to follow the director (though I need to improve in this) but directors generally hold to whatever tempo I establish during my solo introduction.
2. The tune to which we sing “Come, Come Ye Saints” is an old English drinking song, as my Grandpa Willis learned on his mission nearly a century ago when he played it on some other church’s organ in England.