Artsy-Fartsy

I think I’ve mentioned before that I am from a small town in Utah. That effectively makes me a "hick." I’m not exactly sure where that term came from, but I do know that it means I’m pretty uncultured. (Remember I do have a church pew in my living room and I couldn’t possibly park even one car in my three-car garage. I also like to plant tomatoes and cabbages in my front flowerbeds.)

I’m not a fan of artsy-fartsy classical concerts, operas or the ballet unless I know one or more of the performers. I’ve even been known to ask my sweetie to wake me up when one of our kids comes on stage. I tend to prefer loud basketball and football games (it’s hard to sleep during those), big family parties, and chaos in general. In an effort to have my kids not become hicks we encourage (Princess would say force) our children to do all kinds of musical, cultured artsy-fartsy things.

We sign them all up for a couple of years of dance. We figure even if it gives them a little more grace on the football field it is worth the effort. In our house we can’t really afford piano lessons so we require several years of band in elementary and middle school. I currently have three children playing musical instruments in various public school bands. The Dog Walker happens to be one of them. He has been playing the trumpet for five years and I thought he was finally absorbing a little culture. We wouldn’t want him to grow up like us without an appreciation for the finer things in life!

As a member of the marching band, the Dog Walker was required to watch the rest of the bands perform. If you’ve never seen a marching band competition, you would be amazed at the amount of "art" that has been inflicted into John Phillips Sousa. For this particular show they were even tossing French flags. My son was not impressed. He sent a text, "We are watching some dumb music show." The annoyance came through loud and clear. Since he was at a marching band competition that seemed pretty obvious. "What’s the show?" He paused for only a second and then my autistic son who always spells unfamiliar words phonetically punched out the reply, "Lame is." I guess there’s no hope for any of us.