Jewish Country Songs

* Honkey Tonk Nights On The Golden Heigh lo

* I Was One Of The Chosen People ‘Til She Chose Somebody Else

* Stand By Your Merch

* I'm Crying In The Manischewitz

* The Shikoas Gonna Hit The Fan!

* Four Thousand Years Of Sufferin' And I Had To Go And Marry You

* Eighteen Wheels And A Dozen Latkes

* You've Been Talkin' Hebrew In Your Sleep Since The Rabbi's Come To Town

* You Picked A Fine Time To Leave Me Schiemiel

* Yippee Ko Yi Oy!

There Are No Words

I enjoy blogging and reading friends' blogs. I've been occupied with other things lately. I've been working part-time watching kids. One is in school and the other two and just 3 and 2. It never ceases to amaze me how fast they can get into something. So last week you can imagine my surprise and sudden sorrow when I checked on my blog friends only to discover that one of my oldest and dearest friends had died.

There are no words to describe how I felt.It is true we are, in the grand scheme of things, only here for a short time. I just wished had just a little more time with Dr John. I enjoyed his tales of Pigeon Falls. But now the trains have stopped. The residents there are quiet. The storyline has been cut short. Where will they go, what will they do. Nobody could tell a story like Dr John.

I remember his little comments to me on my blog as well as his "leave a comment" and other little "contests" he had to keep us motivated. Such an imagination he had. I actually won a couple of his contests. One prize was a tiny ceramic figure of two cardinals on a bare tree in the snow. Now that is a very special treasure for me.

How do you find the words to describe how much someone touches you? I never physically met Dr John, but he touched me. I never looked into his eyes but I saw God's love there always. When I was happy, he made me laugh. When I was lost, he always knew how to find me.

Over the years of my life I have had people come and go. I would like to think I have learned something from them. I know I learned from Dr John. Peace be with you my dear friend. It was my honor to know you. Thank you for being you.

Your Packages are Here, Oh Wait They're for Me.

Every day is different. It's another chance. Sometimes it's good and sometimes not. And if you go back and think about the year before...well. Take last Valentine's Day. My son and his girlfriend took me to lunch. He gave me two roses. Last year said "Don't read anything into this" and gave me a book. This year he didn't give me a book.

"Your off Friday? That works out great! I've got three packages coming. Can you stay home and make sure they are delivered?" I said sure. It never entered my mind to even think what those three packages might be. He called me a couple of times during the day to ask it the packages arrived. "No, not yet." I said. Finally late in the afternoon after he had gotten home from work there was a knock on the door. Of course the three dogs went nuts. Guard dogs? No. Nosy, yes. I figured that it was his packages so I grabbed the dogs and tried to get them out of the way.

"Jill, it's for you..." he said. Just try wrestling with three dogs and answer the door. And how did he know the door was for me, anyway? So I open the door to discover a delivery person standing there with a big vase of a dozen red roses. Uh, for me? Oh and there was also a teddy bear and a box of chocolates. Click! Now, I see the light. The three packages were not for him but for me. Sneaky. Seems he had ordered all of this on-line. Sneaky. As much as I love to read, I'll take roses any day!

I will also never turn down Sunday morning breakfast made for me complete with a heart in the center of the plate. And I didn't have to wash the dishes either. Later we went to Fry's to drool over computers. A 1 terabyte hard drive sure would hold a lot of music or other stuff. Sigh... While there he decided to buy me a new mp3 player. So I picked out a nice blue 8 gig one. That's 2000 songs I could put on it. That's a lot of music, even for me. So far I've only put about 200 on it. Now I have to decide what else I put on it. A little country, a little rock and roll ( no Donny and Marie jokes here), Eagles, George Strait,Asleep at the Wheel, Rod Stewart. Billy Joel, etc. Now I have to figure out what else... Barry, Dave Koz, Nora Jones, Willie Nelson, Wynton Marsalis, Straight No Chaser, plus some old standards. Plus now I can add more of my jazz friends and some classical without driving other people nuts.

I'll be happy to answer the door if I can get roses.

Mozart Beyond the Grave

When Mozart passed away, he was buried in a churchyard. A couple days later, the town drunk was walking through the cemetery and heard some strange noise coming from the area where Mozart was buried.

Terrified, the drunk ran and got the priest to come and listen to it. The priest bent close to the grave and heard some faint, unrecognizable music coming from the grave. Frightened, the priest ran and got the town magistrate.

When the magistrate arrived, he bent his ear to the grave, listened for a moment, and said, "Ah, yes, that's Mozart's Ninth Symphony, being played backwards."

He listened a while longer, and said, "There's the Eighth Symphony, and it's backwards, too. Most puzzling."

So the magistrate kept listening; "There's the Seventh... the Sixth... the Fifth..."

Suddenly the realization of what was happening dawned on the magistrate; he stood up and announced to the crowd that had gathered in the cemetery, "My fellow citizens, there's nothing to worry about. It's just Mozart decomposing."