Handbell Tour

Robyn and I have had a lot of fun this year playing in the South Main Bronze handbell choir at church. This past weekend, the group went on the road and played at the Buckner Retirement Home in Dallas and at Broadway Baptist Church in Fort Worth. We loaded the bells and tables into a trailer on Friday afternoon and drove to our hotel near the DFW airport, halfway between our two playing venues. I rode with Jim Flynt in his shiny new Toyota pickup truck with the trailer full of equipment behind us. Robyn rode with our director, Daryl Robinson, in his brand new Scion tC. Robyn and Daryl have been friends for a long time, having gone to high school together, and she much preferred riding in the front seat of his car to being in the back seat of a pickup truck! We slogged through about 50 miles of hideous rush-hour/holiday weekend traffic getting out of town and were finally on our way to the "Big D."

The La Quinta was not exactly prepared for our arrival; the rooms which had been reserved for us had lots of wrong names on them, and none of the room key cards would open our rooms (they claimed to have had a power outage earlier in the day, which must have messed with their key card system). It was finally all straightened out, and we had a nice dinner with several group members at the Olive Garden.

Saturday morning, Robyn and I were rudely awakened at 6 a.m. by a hotel wake-up call. Ugh. We had traded rooms the night before with Jim Flynt, and he had asked for the 6 a.m. call, then we forget to cancel it after we made the trade. Anyway, our concert at Buckner was at 10, so we got up and had Texas-shaped waffles at the hotel before heading out. In order to add length to the program, Daryl had asked Robyn and me to play a couple of oboe/bassoon duets, so we played "Alexander's Ragtime Band" and "Chicken Reel" for them. That was really fun, especially when I managed to miss the D.S. in the Chicken Reel and had to stop and re-start to find my place! Oh, well...After the program, most of the group met for lunch at TGI Friday's in the downtown area.

Saturday afternoon was unstructured. A few of the members who brought their families went to Six Flags, but we declined their offer of free passes. Instead, we ventured to the nearby mall and walked around for a couple of hours. Then we played some Farkel and eventually went out to dinner (after nearly breaking down Daryl's door to wake him up from his afternoon nap!) at Pappasito's. By this time, I was on overload with the restaurant food and really should have gone back to the mall for a sandwich, but Robyn had arranged to meet one of her Belmont friends who lives in Dallas, so I went along with the group.

On Sunday morning, we played for the service at Broadway Baptist. It turns out that their organ had been disabled while the sanctuary was being painted, and it was not hooked back up yet, so the handbells made a lovely addition to the service. The congregation seemed very appreciative; after the postlude, for which they remained seated, they actually applauded, something that we were told they have been trained NOT to do! The most interesting moment in the service, however, had to be during the several-minutes-long "discipline of silence," when a cell phone began playing its merry tune. Can you believe that the owner answered the phone?????

We had 23 people for lunch at the Blue Mesa Grill before heading back to Houston. The highlight of the trip back was when Jim and I passed a state trooper on the side of the road who had pulled over a speeder in a brand new Scion tC (sound familiar?). I called Robyn on her cell phone and said, "So, how fast was he going?" and she just burst out laughing. We're wondering if Daryl will try to hide that ticket in his expense report for the trip...

I'm excited about my trip to Lexington next week, and Ben's excited about starting his new job with Frost Bank on Monday. Robyn starts the monthlong Texas Music Festival on Saturday, and Tim's just rocking along with his same old routine. In the meantime, enjoy the last few weeks of spring (it's already summer in Houston)!