The Snoopy Dance

Vince Guaraldi Trio; Linus and Lucy

A few days after my high school graduation in 1984, my cousin W. married T. and they are two of my favorite people. W. had asked me to play at their wedding. So my sister D., Grandma E. and I got to drive to Minneapolis a few days before the festivities. What I remember most about their wedding is the rehearsal dinner. T. gave his mother a wrapped gift knowing that she would start to cry, because, apparently, that’s what she did whenever anybody gave her a gift. When she removed the wrapping, there was a box of Kleenex.

Their children, K. and M., are also two of my favorite people. When I saw M. a few months after she was born, she would open her mouth so wide whenever she would yawn. She looked like an opera singer. So we dubbed her Bella Prima Donna of the Metropolitan Opera. The singing part never took. But she’s a pretty good saxophone player. I remember her practicing her part for Leroy Anderson’s “Sleigh Ride”. She had the only part in “Sleigh Ride” that didn’t sound anything like “Sleigh Ride”.

I remember when she was three or four years old. My sister K. and I took the kids to the park. When we got back she went running up to my dad, who was napping, and she loudly declared, “We went to da powk!” Dad, struggling to recall where he was, shifted into automatic parent pilot and reflexively repeated what he heard, “You went to da powk?” And M., indignant, vexed and piqued beyond a level that any respectable three or four year old could be expected to bear, gave Dad “the look” and articulated, “No, not to da powk. I said, ‘We went to da POWK!’”

K. is my comrade in everything that is “The Simpsons”. As much as I love that animated program, I will concede that K. has probably gone one inch further over the edge than I have with an ability to recite long passages of comedic Simpsons gold. He and I can and have entertained ourselves for hours recalling hilarious moments from our favorite show.

Whenever I sat at the piano in their house, K. was right there paying very close attention. Through the years, he has become a talented piano player and an excellent guitar player. Currently he is a trumpet student at the University of Minnesota School of Music enjoying studies in both jazz and classical music. M. attends Luther College in Decorah, IA. These two kids are near and dear to my heart and I am very proud of both of them.

I don’t know when there has been more joy in the house than when K. and M., when they were kids, would do the “Snoopy” dance if they could get me to play “Linus and Lucy”. And it was routine for that to happen several times over the course of a visit.

“A Charlie Brown Christmas” was first aired in 1965, the year that I was born. Charles Schulz’s Peanuts and the music of Vince Guaraldi have played major roles along the way. In 2001, a United States Marine Band combo was sent over to the Capitol to play for a ceremony. Congress was bestowing the Congressional Gold Medal, posthumously, to Charles Schulz. I wasn’t initially asked to play with this combo. But something came up for the original pianist, so I was put on the job.

We played Vince Guaraldi’s music from all of the Peanuts specials all afternoon for a packed Capitol Rotunda, ending our set with “Christmas Time Is Here” and “Linus and Lucy” before they began the ceremony. The proceedings were taped and a few seconds of the ceremony and our music was included in a tribute to Charles Schulz when ABC aired “A Charlie Brown Christmas” that December. The Internet Movie Database has included me on their website because my fellow combo players and I were mentioned in the credits. In typical Charlie Brown fashion, my name is misspelled.

I didn’t tell anybody about it being on TV because I didn’t think we would be featured enough to warrant a fuss. But there we were. Can you believe that K. and M. were watching the show? They saw me right away. And immediately started doing the “Snoopy” dance.

Credits: To Leroy Anderson, for often putting more charm and creative thought into three or four minute musical gems than some composers put into major symphonies. Thank you for "Sleigh Ride" and "Belle Of The Ball". I'm a sucker for a catchy tune.