voices....

As a little girl, I got in trouble one time when I took one of my Mother’s nice necklaces with a fine gold chain, and for whatever reason I thought it would be fun to wrap it around the old spring that was attached to our back porch door…… I guess I thought it would be pretty on there, mixed in with the silver wires that twisted round and round and I could see it every time I went outside. The problem came when Mom seen what I was doing, made me stop and we tried to take it out. It was so tangled and twisted in the spring there was no way. It was still there when the old house was eventually moved and the back door replaced.

I think I cried for days, and eventually I remember my Mom telling me, to stop whining. I felt so bad about the chain, I decided to run away…… Everybody was mad at me, and I just figured the best thing to do was leave. The big dilemma was where could I go? I couldn’t have been much over 5 or 6 years old…..

At the time, Roy Rogers and Dale Evans had adopted some kids and taken them into their family in California…. I knew I couldn’t make it all the way there on my own, so I wrote Roy Rogers a letter and told him I thought it would be a good idea if he would just come and get me.

I vowed in that letter that I would try to be really nice, not do anything wrong and not whine while I was waiting on him. For some reason I figured I’d have better luck if I could make my voice sound like his, so I started practicing at that time to lower my voice…. I think the “trying to be nice” passed quickly, and I don’t know whatever happened to the letter, but I continued to work on my voice. This was a big deal to me, I was smart enough to know that even if I didn’t get to go live with Roy Rogers, at least my Mom might like me better if I didn’t whine.

I’ve been told I have a pleasant voice, it is low and soft….. maybe best described as husky. One thing for sure, it does NOT sound whiny!

I tell this story, only because even though I have a nice and quite capable sounding voice, I hate using it!

I actually used to work in radio many years ago……I was desperate for a job and lied to the owner of the station to convince him I could keep his books. That was in the days before computer finance programs. When he realized I barely knew a credit from a debit, he put me to work writing copy, and running traffic….finally on to the radio with a program called “A moment with Mary”…. I got along fine with that simply because I broadcast from a small announcer’s booth and didn’t have to do it in public.

Some years later I went to work as the administrative director for a charity organization and I had to do public speaking. Once when setting at a banquet table waiting to be introduced, my legs were shaking so bad I almost knocked the dishes over….. Anyone who hates public speaking as much as I do, can relate to the “sick to your stomach” feeling if you are forced into it.

I so admire people who have a nice voice and know how to use it. To stand at a podium and deliver a message in front of God and everyone else, means so much more than just putting it on paper and hoping someone might read it. The great orators of the world have the ability to actually change people’s lives.

Our minister has a wonderful speaking voice….. he gets his points across, inflects at the right places, speaking quietly or loudly, meaningful, exciting……. Beyond the message he is a pleasure to listen to.

I have a friend who will not write a letter, not even email, and she calls on the phone to chat now and then. Yet, when you’re with her in a crowd of people she brings the whole room to life with jokes, stories, and always has the right words at the right time for any situation…. She amazes me as I stand quietly by and just watch her. It’s all I can do to carry on a one on one conversation without wishing I could crawl into the corner.

A blogger who just writes “thoughts” ? …. Well …. It is what it is…….

I have so much more to share, but please don’t ever expect me to do it out loud….. You would find me under the table….. Oh, and forget singing, I sound like a sick bullfrog.