Christmas on the road

Late last week, amid making these orchestra posts, I asked Mom if she had anything else of Dad's earlier years. I told her that I had posted an invitation at the Finlayson Family Forum, for my siblings to share any stories that Dad might have told them (apparently not).  Mother asked if I recalled Westbrook's Christmas with the band. I told her that I hadn't. She said that Westbrook had written it down somewhere but that she couldn't find it. She's got a lot of stuff stored in the crannies of that little house of hers. Mother said that his telling was better and gave me an abbreviated version of it.

There was a Christmas Eve when Dad and his band were trying to make it back home for Christmas and couldn't. Dad said they found a church along the road and pulled off the road.  They stood at the edge of the church lawn and sang carrols. 

So instantly I pictured them in my mind, a little white chaple with the steeple with thirteen young musicians standing shoulder to shoulder in the brisk Winter evening  - singing about the birth of Jesus. You know that it had to sound good and that even though they weren't home, they shared something very special together.