Stories from the Stringam Family Ranches of Southern Alberta

From the 50s and 60s to today . . .



Friday, July 22, 2022

Shining Optional

Go ahead! Sing!
How do you 'rise and shine'?
Throughout my life, I have been summoned from sleep in various ways.
Some gentle.
Some strident.
All annoying.
My mom, a member of the 'never wake a sleeping child' sorority, let me sleep in till I woke up on my own.
Well, until I went to school, that is.
Then, her usual wake up call consisted of, “Diane! Get up! The bus will be here in ten minutes!”
Okay, I will admit that she usually called me much earlier than that.
I just wasn't listening.
Ahem.
Dad's form of summoning consisted of one word. “Spring!” And it was always obeyed instantly.
Mom, you could coax and cajole, but dad?
You moved.
Because.
Often, I found myself standing beside my bed with no idea of how I got there.
My Husby took a more creative, albeit (Oooh! Good word!) equally annoying route.
He would sing.
Badly.
And loudly.
In our house, 'Oh, What a Beautiful Morning!', the usually bright, happy, uplifting anthem from Oklahoma, sounded more like . . . honking. Or ball-bearings rolling around in a hubcap. (Don't ask me how I know what that sounds like.)
His 'singing' brought instant . . . let me put it this way: No one slept through it.
“Dad! Aarrgghh!”
Moving ahead . . .
Our oldest son had recently become engaged.
To a beautiful girl.
Our entire family had traveled to Fort Macleod to a reunion.
Our future daughter-in-law was bunking with our other daughters.
It was morning and there was far too much sleeping going on.
My Husby decided he needed to do something proactive.
He went to the door of the girls' room.
Cleared his throat.
And started singing.
You really haven't heard 'Oh What a Beautiful Morning' sung quite like he sings it.
Our future daughter-in-law looked at her future-sister-in-law. “Does he always do this?”
FSIL's answer was muffled by the pillow over her head. “Yes.”
“Oh. Maybe I'll have to rethink my joining this family.”
She did join. She comes from hardy stock.
I thought I'd tell you that in case you were worried.
Back to my story . . .
This morning, my alarm woke me.
“Bla-Bla-Bla-Bla-Bla-Bla . . .”
Suddenly I missed my Mom's repeated time updates, my Dad's single word warnings and my Husby's singing.
It's all a matter of perspective.

9 comments:

  1. On the one hand, I can think, how lucky I was; all I ever had was the alarm clock or a clock radio. On the other hand, how can an alarm clock bring back such wonderful memories?

    ReplyDelete
  2. That sounds like a lovely way to wake up, except for the hubcap part!... Laurie

    ReplyDelete
  3. Doesn't matter how you wake me up, I'm grumpy until I get my coffee.

    ReplyDelete
  4. My father used to send the dog in to roust us out of bed. Licks, barks and enthusiastic digging work. Quickly.

    ReplyDelete
  5. I still hate getting up. I often say that God was in a bad mood when he created mornings. But there's nothing bad singing can't make worse. At least it was done with love :D

    ReplyDelete
  6. My mother poured water on us if we didn't get up the 3rd time, she called us. I hated that!

    ReplyDelete
  7. My problem, if you can call it that, is i am a morning person and generally wake up sans alarm or anything else. It's most annoying on the few days i actually can and wouldn't mind sleeping in a little.

    The alarm is a cold thing, at least your husband's singing is done with love.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Singing or springing - both are so much better than a parent getting cross :)

    ReplyDelete
  9. thank you for writing and publishing this article. this article is very interesting to read for me and very easy to understand and of course very useful

    ReplyDelete

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