I have three volumes....loud, louder, loudest

I have three volumes:  loud, louder, and loudest.  My friend Lisa has said this to people and I love it.  I am not talking about my stereo volume, this is my voice.  Just ask anyone who knows me.  For that matter, I was the loudest clarinet player.  Just ask my friend Robin.  Robin was our section leader at one time and always had the pleasure, or displeasure, of hearing my loudness.  Robin also always wondered why I didn’t sweat, as she constantly wiped herself down with whatever cloth she had while looking at me and saying, “what is wrong with you?”  But that is a different story and plus it was probably because I was too busy being my loud self.  I didn’t have time to sweat.  I always liked to hit the high “C” as the last note for the school song.  When I mean a loud clarinet player, it wasn’t like I sat there and blew into the mouthpiece with my cheeks puffed out sending out a distress signal to all the birds flying overhead.  I was just LOUD.  I know we have all seen the Verizon Wireless commercial always asking, “Can you hear me now?”  Most people who know me would say, “Good grief YES we hear you.  How could we not?”

Everything I do is loud, even when I am not speaking.  My mom used to say she always knew when I went into a drawer because the drawer was in disarray.  I guess you could say my fingers were loud.  For that matter, I have bruises all over me because whenever I lose my balance I am always banging into something.  I have knocked into our doggy gate so many times, that I think once I even dragged the thing around the house because it got caught on my foot.  I would never make a good burglar.

True story.  When I was in 8^th grade, I sang a solo in our choir concert.  I remember this as plain as day.  As I carefully stepped to the microphone, little 5’1/2” me, this booming voice rang through the auditorium and the microphone had to be turned DOWN.  Even when I had to back away from the microphone to sing with the choir, my voice STILL boomed through the auditorium.  Powerful things are in small packages.  I was drum major my senior year, and also the shortest drum major.  Well, this little drum major had the LOUDEST VOICE when counting off a song.  I think I even heard on the video tape of one of our competitions someone saying, “That girl has lungs.”

My son has occasionally picked me up from work.  When he entered the building my girlfriend said to him, “Oh, she is down in Mark’s room.”  His response?  “I know, I could hear her all the way outside.”  Yup, loud.  Shaun is always asking me, “Why do you have to be so loud?”  My response, “Why do you have to talk so soft?”  Or, Shaun’s biggest pet peeve…when I ask him a question, in all my loudness, and when he says “what?” I begin talking louder and in slow motion.  For example, Me:  “What are you doing tonight?”  Shaun’s response, “What?”  Then again, in loud speak:  WHHAAAATTTTT ARRRRRRE YOUUUUUUU  DOOOOOOOING TOOOOOONIIIIIIIIIGHT?”  At which point he says to me, “You do realize I am not hard of hearing and you don’t need to drag out your words when you talk to me?”  Well, ANSWER ME IN A LOUD VOICE!

Why am I thinking of all this today?  As I sit outside, with the wind blowing through my hair and the chimes banging in the wind there is peace.  My mouth is shut for the moment as I take in the birds chirping and the geese honking in the background.  But you can bet, when necessary, this mouth will fly open in all its loudness when needed.