I’ve been given many nice things over the years: good books,
straight talk from someone who loves me, one time a stranger gave me
money to cover a prescription when I was young and broke and crying in
a drugstore…but one of the nicest gifts anyone has ever given me had
to do with my love for yodelling, and came a couple of years ago when I
was working for a theatre company in the country.
A really sweet person named Kathy worked the box office. At the end
of the season, she held a party for the cast and crew at her farm.
People from the community came out and everywhere you looked there were
guitars on the go…all of a sudden I hear this beautiful sound and I
look up and there’s this man and he’s yodeling…for me! All arranged
by Kathy who called this guy—this shy, older guy who lived “up down
the road” who didn’t know me from Adam—and said, “Listen, can you
come and sing for this gal who’s nutty for a yodel…?” And god love
him, he did.
Lemme tell ya, if you like such a thing as yodelling you tend to
take a lot of heat for it, so the fact that someone was sweet enough to
give me my very own yodel-serenade was very special.
This article appears in Dec 3-9, 2009.