Welcome the Fiddler!

So how do I spend my time in retirement, you ask?  Very pleasantly, on the whole.  Some days indeed, I am so occupied I cannot get in all the jobs I have engaged myself to do.

I play the organ in church.  Somewhat like myself, it is ancient and unpredictable.  Between Masses, benediction services, novenas, Holy Hours, missions, First Fridays, and so on, I am fairly often seated at the organ, which I play very ‘charitably’, for, verily, ‘my right hand knoweth not what my left hand doeth!’
Any time I meet a pretty young girl – and this town is full of them – I’ll say, ‘I’ll play the bridal march at your wedding.’ They always say, “Ach, Mr Crawford, you’ll have to get me a boy first!”  I notice that they always sigh when they tell me this.  In order to keep their young hearts up, I answer them thus:

“Look here, daughter, I never promised a girl that I’d play at her wedding, that I didn’t fulfil my promise.”  And it is so.  The first wedding I played at was in 1912.  Even considering that Lent is a close season, and Advent another,  have played for a brave few brides in that half-century.

I hope that, dressed in their bridal raiment, they will be waiting for me at the golden gates of heaven, as the blessed welcome the merry ‘Fiddler of Dooney’.

… more later …

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