"I'll be Home for Chrismas"

"In 1943 the world was at war, and many thousands of American [and Canadian] men and women in the service would be spending Christmas far from home.  As a special gift to them and their families came this lovely, tender ballad, recorded by Bing Crosby.  Just a year earlier, Bing had had a best-seller with Irving Berlin's 'White Christmas,' and his recording of this new song by Kim Gannon and Walter Kent also passed the million-record mark in sales.  On December 17, 1965, the Crosby recording became the first 'request' that was broadcast into outer space.  As astronauts James Lovell and Frank Borman were hurtling back to earth aboard Gemini7 after their record 206 orbits, a NASA transmitter asked if there was any music they would especially like to hear.  Their immediate reply?  Bing's 'I'll Be Home for Christmas.' "

Merry Christmas Songbook, The Reader's Digest Assoc. Inc., 1981.

I'll be home for Christmas;
You can plan on me.
Please have snow and mistletoe
And presents on the tree.
Christmas Eve will find me
Where the love-light gleams.
I'll be home for Christmas
If only in my dreams.

"It's six pink peppermints to Christmas, and there's lots and lots of things for us to do!

You and I will bake a pumpkin pie and pick a purple tie for Uncle Lou.
It's five pink peppermints to Christmas, and there's lots and lots of things for us to do!
Make the cookies, Fill the punch bowl.  Light the candles.
Sing Christmas carols 'round the tree. ..
String the popcorn, Trim the pine tree, Hang the stocking, Hide the presents...."
It's six pink peppermints to Christmas.

~ Lines from "The Christmas Candy Calendar" by Robert Maxwell
THE CHRISTMAS TREE From a Painting by Albert Chevalier Tayler



Summer of '13

Mumford & Sons Simcoe ON

No more winter here !  Posting only spring and summer.



View from the Bleachers Simcoe Fair Grounds

More Mumford to follow. . . What a great concert in Simcoe, ON, Summer 2013.

(Yes, my new PC is still in the computer shop 38 days and counting.  Limited  files/photos available. lbw.)


[. . . 39 days and counting.  We have asked for my computer and money to be returned. The store owner has not begun to install the new drives or, of course, transfer my invaluable files, family tree, photos, e-mail and addresses.  Customer service?  No communication?  No courtesy replies to my e-mail.  And yes, apologies to our regular repair man, we would have our computer by now, no doubt!]

"Peace on the earth, good will to men,
From heaven's all gracious King!"
The world in solemn stillness lay
To hear the angels sing.

Still through the cloven skies they come
With peaceful wings unfurled
And still their heavenly music floats O'er all the weary world;
Above its sad and lowly plains
They bend on hovering wing,
And ever o'er its Babel sounds
The blessed angels sing.

~ Richard Storrs Willis (1810 -1876) American composer and journalist.
Photo:  Greeting card circa 1980.

Mumford & Sons Gentlemen of the Road Stopover 2013

 





"Music alone with sudden charms can bind
The wand'ring sense, and calm the troubled mind."

~ William Congreve (167- - 1729)  Elizabethan dramatist, playwright, poet.

Gates Open Simcoe Gentlemen of the Road Stopover

"Last year's Stopovers were a dream come true for us.  We collaborated with small, quirky towns around the world to put on a stone-cold wonderful day of music (excuse the immodesty).

"Every town has something unique to share."  ~ Mumford & Sons

~ Simcoe, August 24 & 25, 2013

Mumford & Sons' Gentlemen of the Road Stopover Simcoe

"We encourage everyone to explore.  Soak it up.  Enjoy the town.  There will be events happening into the night (and in the mornings for early risers).  If it's a town you've never been to, you've got no excuses; if it's the town you are from, thank you for having us.  We cannot wait."

~ Mumford & Sons

Gentlemen of the Road ~

The buried man ~ FESTIVAL GROUNDS SIMCOE The Mumford & Sons' Gentlemen of the Road Stopover, August 24 & 25, 2013.

The Heart of Simcoe, Norfolk ~ Downtown

Gentlemen of The Road

"EACH GENTLEMEN OF THE ROAD STOPOVER celebrates the local food, culture, and music of an interesting small city or town.  We've handpicked these unique communities and have collaborated with our local partners to build a fun and intimate live music experience from the ground up..." ~ Mumford & Sons

Congratulations, Simcoe, Norfolk, on a job well done.  Shuttle buses carried visitors from off-site parking and camping to the heart of Simcoe ~ downtown.   Street fairs and business promotions attracted residents as well as people from British Columbia, New Brunswick, the U.S. and Europe to mention a few.

Main streets were closed to vehicles to accommodate the flow of an estimated thirty-five thousand visitors.

www.mumfordandsons.com
www.simcoetowncentre.com

If I should stay, I would only be in your way
So I 'll go but I know I'll think of you every step of the way.
And I will always love you.
I will always love you.
You my darling, you ~ mhhh.
Better sweet memories,
That is all I'm taking with me.
So goodbye, please don't cry.
We both know I'm not what you, you need
And I will always love you.
I will always love you.
~ Interlude ~
I hope life treats you kind
And I hope you have all you dreamed of.
And I'm wishing you joy and happiness,
But above all this, I wish you love.
And I will always love you.
I will always love you
I will always love you
I will always love you
You, Darling. I'll always, I'll always love you.

~ written by Dolly Parton , Whitney Houston in The Bodyguard (1992)
Postcard Collection Courtesy John Walker

119 Year Old ~ Lye Opus 107 Pipe Organ

The last Lye organ was built in 1954 in Toronto, Ontario. In addition to the 119 year old working Lye organ in Smithville, Ontario, there are sixty scattered among churches in Toronto and others remain in B.C., Prince Edward Island, Nova Scotia and the Yukon. The Royal Canadian College of Organists has designated the Smithville organ as "one of the only working pump organs of that era."
Born in Crewkeme, Somerset, England, Edward Lye, a cabinet maker, arrived in Canada in 1857. He began his organ building business in 1864 at 18 and 20 St. Alban's Street, Toronto.
Photo: by Lorna

Dave Pearson and The Cottonwood Brass Quintet

Cottonwood Mansion hosted a Peach Social on Sunday with outdoor entertainment provided by the Cottonwood Brass Quintet.

In the photo, Dave Pearson playing the Cayuga Two Step ~ music written in 1906 to honour the Cayuga, a stylish ship that conducted lake tours from Toronto to Buffalo.

Built between 1865 - 70, Cottonwood Mansion is a sixteen room, Italianate style home. Visit the mansion at www.linetap.com/cottonwoodmansion

Photos: by Lorna

Summertime and the Two-Step

Dave Pearson didn't know if he would have the brass arrangement ready for Sunday. He did and the audience tapped their toes to the HAMILTON CENTENNIAL March and Two-Step ~ a piece of sheet music that Dave discovered in The Neat Little Bookshop. Copyright 1913 by Charles Wellinger.

l - r Graham Young, cornet; Ryan Baker, cornet; Dave Pearson, tuba; Mary Ann Pearson, trombone and euphonium and Michael Hindricks, french horn.

Photos: by Lorna