Hamblin Family Traditions

I love our once a month get togethers for family home evening with the whole family. i LOVE singing our old family traditional songs. "Whoa Mule Whoa," and "I've Got a Gal I Do."..... and of course all of our songs with rounds.

The cycle of our family get togethers usually goes along these lines...

The Uncles are chosen to lead the separate groups and give us the pitch. One brother gives the pitch..but no..."That's too Low."...Eric says trying to reassure that he is the correct brother. but without fail Scott remarks "No...Eric...We're not all sopranos here." It takes a few more times as The Brothers hum their pitch and finally agree on one. Once we start there's no stopping. As you look around room you can see the 24 cousins. The young cousins are wailing pitchy words to a yelling kind of tune as they punch, poke and giggle as they cause their usual ruckus. They become more hyper and out of control with each belted word. The older cousins are slouching over and barely getting the words out. You can see the expression of...well not really anything. You can look from Merrill to Steve, to Scott---...all with looks of concern on their face that their group is flying out of hand and torturing the songs that they have have put together for THE FHE song. all of a sudden.......OKAY.STOP! We need to start over.

Uncle Steve is usually the one that puts us to the halt. It takes about a minute for everyone to realize that half of us have stopped singing. .....An again..we begin the tortuous, but pleasant family song. We spend the next half an hour continuing with rounds of songs trying "to make up for the last one", until finally we agree to just sing a song that doesn't require so much thinking, so as not to strain the Uncles' brains too much.