The Circle D Revisited

I was a child in the era of the great television Westerns. I watched them all. "Bat Masterson," starring Gene Barry, was my favorite. I would also get up at 6:30 on Saturday mornings to watch the Roy Rogers show. To be honest, I probably watched them because I was horse crazy, and Westerns were pretty much the only place on tv you could see horses. But I digress.

Somewhere in there as I learned Western lore, I learned about brands and how they branded horses and cattle. (Today they use microchips under the skin -- my horse has one -- but I am digressing again, bad habit.) And somewhere in learning about brands, I created one for my imaginary ranch. I called my ranch the Circle D. I have no idea why D and not A, B, C, or something else. But it was the Circle D. And being a creative child, I made up a song to go along with it. It used all of seven white notes on the piano. "Circle D (D, D), Circle D (D, D), it's the best ranch in the land." Well, I was six or seven years old, and I was no Mozart.

My mother's brother, however, WAS a musician. And his last name started with D. Whether he thought I came up with the Circle D as homage to my maternal family or what, I don't know. But he composed a grand piece of music to my Circle D melody. It was awesome.

My Circle D imaginary ranch went by the wayside as I grew up. I hadn't thought about it in years. But then we bought this material at church for Vacation Bible School, and the theme is the Circle G Ranch: "Where God is at the center and the love never ends." I admit it was a while before I made the connection between the Circle G and my old Circle D, but there it is. The Circle G Ranch, like mine, has its own theme song, something about "There's a place for you at the Circle G ranch." Much more inclusive than my song, which I have to admit was somewhat more grandiose in its theme.

As I write this, I am not sure what is going to happen to our Vacation Bible School. We haven't had a lot of registrations come in so far -- the opening session is two weeks from today -- and I don't know if we will have to cancel it or not. (More on that in another blog.) If push comes to shove, we will have "Vacation Bible School" in the worship service that Sunday (it's my one chance every year to sneak in a little contemporary worship) and use the material that way. I hope we get to do the whole program we have planned. It looks like so much fun.

Circle D. My musical uncle recorded the Bat Masterson theme for me off the television, circa 1958, on a reel-to-reel tape recorder and had a 78 rpm record made of it. I still have it. In fact, I sent my old turntable to a company on Long Island for repairs some years ago just so I could play the 78s I still have (they don't make many turntables any more, and the ones they do make only have 33 and 45 speeds). I should hook up the turntable and play my Bat Masterson theme song, just for old time's sake. This in an era of MP3s and iPods and all-digital music. Yeah, yeah. In this age, it's as big a challenge to get the old technology to work as it is to get the new technology to work. And that, too, is a subject for another blog.

Pastor Kathy