The Roar

Nawar El-Khouri Hage | Jun 19, 2025

Interesting how the mind works. I started this Roar thinking about the Toll Road that we are about to arrive to, and my mind got dragged into the idea of a full year from one toll road to the next. And with that thought I made it to four seasons in a year, which took my mind straight to Vivaldi.

Forty-five minutes make up Vivaldi’s famous Four Seasons, a splendid piece of music that has been used over and again in weddings, movies, children cartoons and so much more. While the music is sufficient to arouse emotions of happiness, what intensifies the power of the music is the fact that sonnets describing exactly what Vivaldi wanted to show in every season accompanied the piece of music. That was a very original idea at the time, a musical composition that went beyond the feelings that music evoked into actual imagery of what the composer wanted the listener to see. And so, we move from Vivaldi’s Spring with the sound of streams and the picture of the shepherd with his dog, into Summer’s turtledoves, Fall’s Harvest and hunting trips; and finally Winter’s chilly weather and icy routes.

Vivaldi ends his sonnet with an excellent reminder to all: “… this is winter, which nonetheless brings its own delights”.

We have been delighted indeed in every season this year, as we should be, like Vivaldi proposed, even in winter. In fact, winter brought us Santa on a sleigh and thirty elves working in his workshop, and many mishaps of that team. Winter also took us to a shelter where we warmed some hearts with the thought that others, far away, in Land O’ Lakes thought about them, sewed them heart pillows, sent them chocolates on Valentine’s, and kept them in their prayers.

Fall held its notes with Thanksgiving dinner for all, vision and hearing screening, diabetes tag day, Halloween crafts and moments of tears and pride in remembrance of the sacrifice of our veterans as we raised the memorial banners.

Spring touched our hearts as we saw little hats go to children with cancer, and we endlessly laughed as horses raced during our casino night, we learned from speakers at the forum and barbequed for volunteers who took time to clean up the ditches.

And through it all, days and months, more than 19,000 hours of service kept us going on in bingo, euchre, bottles pick up, catch the ace videos, music and friends’ afternoons, meetings with celebrations and moments of silence for departed ones.

Now we are back to Summer, donations of more than $35,000, a dog guide walk, market extravaganza and yard sale all done, and we are back, exactly where we started, standing at the side of the road with a fishnet and waving our flag. And we remember, the year our club was chartered fifty-six years ago, the first summer with a toll road; the seasons always start again.

Till we meet again in a Roar, and in a slightly different end tone, here is a note of thanks to our local newspaper for covering,  our community for the support, our club for the kindness, our board for the direction and our president for the leadership; and a call for all to take a step back, to reflect on the year, and to start the new one with the renewed energy of service.