Do you ever...

Do you ever just get the urge to jump up on a stage and start belting out the opening song from Meredith Willson's "The Music Man?"

"Oh, there's nothin' halfway about the Iowa way to greet you, when we greet you, which we may not do at all. There's an Iowa kind, a special chip-on-the-shoulder attitude we've never been without that we recall. We can be cold as the falling thermometer in December if you ask about our weather in July. And we're so by-God stubborn we can stand touching noses for a week at a time and never see eye to eye.

But we'll give you our shirt and our backs to go with it if your crops should happen to die.

But what the heck, you're welcome. Join us at the picnic. You can have your fill of all the food you bring yourself. You really ought to give Iowa, hawkeye Iowa. Debuque, Des Moines, Davenport, Marshalltown, Mason City, Keokuk, Ames, Clear Lake. Ought to give Iowa a try."

That song has been permanently emblazoned on my mind since my freshman year in high school when we did it at my school. I was "woman #2" who says, "I haven't seen any uniform, or my boy either, since just after supper!" I put more emotion into that one line than most people put into...I dunno...a lot of things.

Anyway, I've had this urge to get up and sing this song at one of our Christmas musical rehearsals for a couple of weeks now. I just thought you'd like to know.