Get-Togethers: My little brother Andy went into the Missionary Training Center this afternoon to start his two-year mission to Minnesota.

On Sunday night, he had a couple of friends over and they all played music. It wasn't a show, really. It was just a few guys with guitars and mandolins playing and singing and having a good time. Anybody could sing along if they knew enough country music to know the words.

This things seem to happen at my parent's house once in a while. Often, it's around the time one of us heads out. Before my brother Dustin left for Switzerland, there were people over at their house singing and dancing the Haka. My sister's wedding reception had a whole bunch of singing and dancing by various groups doing various island and other dances. My brothers even got into the act, doing the Haka with her new brothers-in-law.

(I didn't get invited to participate in that one, I think because no one wanted to see me with my shirt off.)

I dearly love these times. I sometimes get nostalgic for a time I wasn't even around for, a time when, instead of seeing what new insipid torture the reality TV show producers can put people through for money, we would try to entertain each other, gathering around a piano and belting out lighthearted stuff loud enough to wake the neighbors.

Now, when anybody with a CD player can compare your voice to the greatest vocalists in the world, people are embarrassed to sing. It's as if we've forgotten that really, singing isn't so much about talent as it is about recreation.

It's just plain fun.

Obviously this doesn't mean I don't enjoy hearing the pros when I get the chance. And Sunday, it helped that the guys with the guitars and mandolins were really talented.

But all of that was backseat to the fact that it was just plain old ordinary fun.

So I call for all people, everywhere, to lighten up! Sing along with the radio! Bang that steering wheel like a drum! Dance with your kids!

Let this be the blog post that took the timidity out of the world! We will harken back to this message, to these words, as the Declaration of Independence from Judgement that allowed us to have a good time again!

In fact, I feel so strongly about this, I'm going to sing about this right now!!

I'm going to . . .

Hey, where's everybody going? Wait!

Come back!