November 30, 2017 – The distant sound of bagpipes
The
Macy’s Thanksgiving parade wouldn’t be complete without bagpipes – now would
it? And, earlier this year we had the
Presidential Inaugural parade which included bagpipes. I love the sound of bagpipes. No, I am not Scottish, but in my everyday life,
I rarely hear them unless I am watching a parade on TV or at some cultural
event high in the mountains.
On
Thanksgiving Day as my husband was TV channel surfing, looking for the football
game, I heard just a soundbite of bagpipes and it reminded of when we lived in
the big house.
We
lived on West 6th Street in Rutherfordton at the time and were
renting this huge two-story clapboard house built in the 1940s. We were about
six houses from the Rutherfordton Presbyterian Church on N. Washington Street.
I had
the windows wide open on a fine May Saturday morning as I am cleaning
house. I hear the skirl of bagpipes –
for a moment and then it stops. Well,
that is interesting – I walk out onto the front step and see another neighbor
walking up the street.
“Did
you hear that?” I asked casually.
I only knew this
neighbor lived at the end of the street but not her first name; I knew that her
husband was a physical education instructor at the local college.
“At the church . . .
there is a wedding . . . there is a
bagpiper. Hurry.” She called as she walking briskly up the street.
I left my house
immediately without shutting the door or locking it and quickly caught up with
her.
We were about 3
houses away when we heard the bagpipes start again.
By then, she started into a run and I followed her in a jog as I had the wrong footwear. The sound was
incredible even at that distance.
We reached the corner
and the church came into view as the bagpipes continued. From what I understand
from the other onlookers outside the church – which consisted mostly of curious
neighbors – not the invitees to the wedding, the bagpiper was slowly walking down
the center aisle of the church prior to the bride going down. I heard it all, but I only saw the bagpiper still
piping come out of the back of the church and walk off into the distance until
I couldn’t see him and then the melody stopped.
It was a thrilling
moment and I wasn’t even in the church. It
is not a big church and I imagined the sound must have been stunning for the
wedding guests.
Now, I rarely pass
that church without thinking back to that beautiful May day when the distant
bagpipes made me dash down the street for a small-town-look-see.
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