A "Grand" gift

This morning at church, a huge surprise was revealed to us. A gorgeous and obviously brand new grand piano sat where our usual old spinet piano has for many long years. I thought that it might have been from a play that was performed at our church yesterday, but as it turns out, this piano was gifted to our church by one of our members, an attorney, Bailey Clegg. He gave a deeply moving and occasionally very funny dedication in honor of his obviously fascinating mother, who died last year at age 95½ (and he said that she would have emphasized the "and a half" part of her age). She sounded like quite a character who also happened to love music her whole life and made it a point to expose her family to it as well. This piano was dedicated to her memory as a spectacular gift to our church and I must say that its sound absolutely filled the entire sanctuary with its crystalline tone. It is of German manufacture, Schimmel, and is a delight to hear played. Everyone had a huge smile on their faces as our music director played it this morning and the most glorious sound emanted from its shiny ebony black body. We envision that we may now be able to host many a classical concert at our church by musicians from the music school at Kent State University. Our sanctuary has really beautiful acoustics and is the perfect setting for intimate classical concerts in our beautiful historic church. Everyone is so excited for what this Christmas gift means for our church. More concerts and more music can only be a good thing for us to be able to offer the community. We're fortunate that the University has an excellent music school on which to tap for musicians to come and perform at our church and we are looking forward to being able to offer concerts for the enjoyment of the community. What a magnanamous gift this piano is for our church!

A BIG BLUE CHRISTMAS PRESENT

I suppose as we look at this holiday season, we can be grateful for one thing and that is the fact that we elected Barack Obama as President and enlarged Democratic majorities in both Houses of Congress, so in a way, we can look at it as one big blue Christmas present to our country. Of course, much of that is because of the financial crisis that began this fall and continues to reveal even more dire news and bad surprises, like the whole Bernard Madoff scandal, a big Ponzi scheme that bilked investors of over $50 billion - yes, that's billion with a "b", not million with an "m". That such a thing was able to happen and that Madoff got away with it for so long seems inconceivable but one can thank the Bush administration for doing away with regulations and oversight of our financial markets for just such goings on. But at least now maybe we can make things right with the Democrats holding a firm grip on power in Washington. Still, one must be a realist and understand that once Dems take over next month, that nothing will get fixed overnight. The damage that the Bush administration has left is incalculable and will take many long years to repair, and I can only hope that people will be patient with the Obama administration and give them time to, as one column in today's paper put it "reinvent the wheel". And that's about what's going to have to happen if this country is to survive this deep freeze in the credit markets and the ongoing financial crisis that resulted from the bursting of the housing bubble. It's amazing how much is being affected by that whole mess and how widespread the damage is being felt. The Detroit Big Three auto manufacturers are on the verge of bankruptcy as a result of the credit crisis and got a bailout from Washington after much hand wringing and consternation but it remains to be seen if that will be enough to save them from themselves. In the meantime, I suppose we can be cautiously optimistic about our incoming administration and what they can accomplish to set things to rights. We have been given a great gift. Now, let's hope they don't blow it.