Every Thanksgiving morning, I join my wife and four kids in the living room to fill what our kids call the "Thankful Jar." We start with huge bags of Jelly Bellies, M&Ms, Skittles and other small candies and fill the jar one piece at a time while stating something for which we are thankful. You get to repeat what someone else said but not what you've already said.
The jar is probably at least couple of quarts (that's 2.2 liters, if you're Canadian), maybe three, so we usually take a small handful when it's our turn and rattle off a bunch of items at a pretty fast clip. A lot of the big stuff goes fast, and after a while you find yourself needing to come up with a lot of little stuff to keep the pace:
"I'm thankful for:
Grandma May The Bill of Rights George Washington Instant Replay Central air conditioning 2nd Thessalonians Beethoven's 9th Symphony The feel of grass under bare feet E=MC2 Peace on our shores Uncle Allan's safety in Iraq Surge protectors and Popsicles"
After a while, the kids find themselves trying to out-random each other and make everyone laugh. But it turns out that even the random "little" stuff isn't that little after all. We feel so blessed when we realize just how much we do have--and how much we'd miss it if we didn't have it.
Barbershop harmony has a lot of that. Here's my own utterly random, off-the-top-of-my head of list of things I'm thankful for in barbershop harmony. How about adding your own?
I'm thankful for:
- Freddie King stories
- My Wild Irish Rose
- Singing Valentines
- Some of my best friends in the world
- Acoustix's "This is the Moment" tag
- Having so many friends from another generation
- All the Keepsake and Suntones stuff on my hard drive
- Tagging
- Inside jokes at international
- Pitch pipes
- BGSU
- Ev Nau
- The pause between a powerful ballad and the applause
- FRED
- Jim Miller
- Joe Liles
- My personal file of arrangements picked up here and there that are probably mostly legal as far as I know
- Christmas shows
- Sweet Adeline
- Sweet Adelines
- The helpful phone calls and emails I get every time I publish a questionable piece of barbershop trivia
- The overall classiness of the barbershop family
- Harmony Brigade
- Pick-up quartets
- Nailing the high G post on stage
- Afterglows
I could add a lot more about folks here in the office and other things, but this wasn't intended to be a comprehensive list.
What candy pieces do you have for your thankful jar?