A Tribute to Frozen Rain

In honor of the murky, freezing rain outside today, along with sleet and occasional snow making sidewalks and streets slippery to the extreme, I thought it appropriate to write a brief record of my most elaborate and interesting acts of falling down thus far in the history of my life.

While in college on a blustery winter day, I stepped quickly into the entrance of the music building to escape the frigid wind, my feet covered with snow. I turned to go down the old marble staircase into the basement of the building on my way to class, and my wet shoes sild forward without my body. I tumbled down the staircase in a most elaborate ariel summersault and landed in a heap at the bottom of the stairwell, bookbag sprawled along side of me. I was uninjured, but quite surprised. My fellow music students didn't know whether to fret or laugh.

That same year, only in the middle of July, I drove to a nearby lake with my roommates. It was a cool summer day. We were all wearing sweatshirts and jeans, and we walked up and down a boating dock near the shore. The end of the dock extending into the water was floating on several old tires, and we soon discovered that it was quite bouyant. In fact, it was as bouncy as a trampoline. We jumped up and down, and found we could fly a good distance into the air. It was all great fun. And then I miscalculated my most fantastic jump, and managed to jump off the dock backwards landing completely submerged in the murky, cold lake water, soaked to the bone. It was by far my most dramatic and gymnastic fall ever, and quite hilarious as well.

In high school I departed my dearly beloved eight seat school bus. The entire north bus route with a population of 12 students looked on as I stepped out onto the gravel driveway of my farm. We were the first stop on the route, the first to depart the noisy interior of the bus. As usual I was carrying quite a load: my clarinet case, french horn case, and enormous book bag with every textbook known to your average sophomore. I lost my balance and somehow, mysteriously slid underneath my mother's car where I became rather stuck, along with my paraphanalia. My little brother had to pull me out from under the automobile, much to the amusement of the audience on the bus peering out the windows in disbelief.


My senior year of college choir was marked by a European tour. I was a soloist on the last song sung at each concert, and at a particular concert in the Netherlands, the conductor motioned for me to come forward from the body of singers to bow as the audience applauded. In fact, he gestured for me to bow on the podium. I climbed onto the podium, began bowing and somehow lost my balance in the middle of the bow and nearly toppled right over, probably the only instance in musical history of someone managing to awkwardly trip in the middle of a bow.

Needless to say I do not possess the gift of physical grace. I've come to accept this quality of my personality and look forward to many more minor catastrophes in the near future.