Confessions of a Loud Guy

by George Wolf

Sunday was a good day to be loud.

I’ve been loud all my life, and not every day caters to us loudies, but Sunday my volume came in pretty handy.

Seems there was some sort of power outage at church, and when the power came back, the sound system would offer nothing but feedback. And so priests, deacons, and the lectors (such as myself) would have to project a bit more so everyone could hear the good word. Somewhere in the pews my wife smiled, amused by the thought of someone suggesting I turn me up. 

Hey, the Lord works in mysterious ways.

This time, though, I had plenty of witnesses that the equipment failed before I got to it, which isn’t always the case.

A few years back I was guesting on a local radio talk show, reviewing the big summer movies soon to come. All was fine during the host’s intro, but when I jumped into the conversation the engineer was suddenly flailing around like Scotty during a full-on Klingon invasion.

“I’m backing it down as much as I can, Captain, but I can’t hold her…it’s gonna blow!”

I didn’t get backboard-endangering height, I got tweeter-endangering vocals, all thanks to Grandpa.

My grandfather had a big, booming voice and, much to my grandmother’s chagrin, he wasn’t shy about using it in public.

“Shut the door!” he’d bark to some random person loitering too long in a restaurant entrance, as my brother and I would giggle and Grandma would fire up another cigarette.

“Thank you!” was Grandpa’s equally loud follow-up, as the bewildered door holder tried to recover from the sudden audio beat down.

So I have Grandpa to thank – but not to blame – because angry parents at the next table don’t care about your family tree when your sports cheering just made their baby cry in terror.

Yes, this has happened.

Fine, more than once. But that doesn’t change the fact that the real issue here is good parenting.

Kids, the correct response is “I-O!”

I’m not saying we voluminous people can’t come in handy. Like the kindly tall folks who hand you that last box of Cocoa Pebbles that’s been mocking you from the top shelf, we can be downright useful.

Emergency at my niece’s wedding reception – no DJ for music or mic for announcements? Ta-da! It’s Loud Uncle George and his iPod, dropping fresh beats from the bar.

So “Me and Mrs. Jones” might have been an unusual choice for the father/daughter dance, but the point is not all heroes wear capes.

Some might even be sitting right next to you at, say…a Springsteen show.

And maybe there’s a bootleg CD of that entire concert that I didn’t record but may have a copy of, and maybe if I gave it to you you would clearly hear a certain someone say “yeah!” as the Boss began a favorite song.

And you might say, hey, I know that guy! I was sitting next to him. He’s pretty cool!

You damn right. And pretty loud.

Peace be with you.

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