I just had to pass this on as a change from some of the current threads.
Sheila
-----Original Message-----
From: [email protected]
To: John Bridges <[email protected]>
Sent: Fri, 5 Jun 2009 3:59 pm
Subject: piper
THE IRISH BAGPIPPER
As a young bagpiper, I was asked by a funeral director to play at a
graveside
service for a homeless man, with no family or friends.
The funeral was to be held at a cemetery way back in the country, and
this man
would be the first to be laid to rest there.
As I was not familiar with the backwoods area, I became lost and being
a typical
man did not stop for directions. I finally arrived an hour late. I saw
the
backhoe and the crew, who were eating lunch, but the hearse was nowhere
in
sight.
I apologized to the workers for my tardiness, and stepped to the side
of the
open grave, where I saw the vault lid already in place.
I assured the workers I would not hold them up for long, but this was
the proper
thing to do. The workers gathered around, still eating their lunch. I
played out
my heart and soul.
As I played the workers began to weep. I played, and I played, like I'd
never
played before: >From "My Home" and "The Lord Is My Shepherd" to
"Flowers of the
Forest" .... I closed the lengthy session with "Amazing Grace" and
walked to my
car.
As I was opening the door and taking off my coat, I overheard one of
the workers
saying to another,
"Jeezuz, Mary'n Joseph, I never seen nothin' like that before - and
I've been
putting in septic tanks for twenty years."
To get on or off this list see list information at
http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
