The other side of the bell

The injury appalled Odessa American photographer Kevin Buehler.

“You actually got a blister?” he asked.

Uh, yeah.

“You actually got a blister?” he said again a little more exasperated.

Ringing the bell for two hours straight was tricky.

Local Salvation Army kettle campaign manager Barbara Eddy warned me about ringing the bell. She even showed me and 10 other new bell ringers in the 2007 Salvation Army kettle campaign orientation how to prop-erly do it.

Apparently one guy in the back row wasn’t listening: me. On my left index finger I have a 1-centimeter long blister. One whole frightening centimeter (I measured for accuracy and to give gruesome detail that keeps the reader on edge). That’s about as big as pinch of salt, and it’s puffy. It’s something a 3-year-old would call a boo-boo.

I call it worker’s compensation.

Eddy said once you actually stand out there and ring the bell, then you understand what it’s like. So I donated my time and went to the other side of the bells’ ring, ring, ringing in the holiday cheer. It was five days before Thanksgiving outside the 42nd Street Wal-Mart’s food center entrance.

Ring, ring, ringing.

And ringing. Bing-bing-bing-bing. Bing-bing-bing-bing.

And ringing some more.

Sometimes it sounded like “Jingle Bells.”

I could never stop ringing, Eddy said. Don’t worry Eddy, I think the holidays are still being rung in — at least in my ears they are.

The bell grabbed people’s attention, even when they tried to avoid eye contact as if I could see into their souls knowing if they’d been generous this holiday season.

I just wanted a hello every now and again.

Some folks were generous with a smile and money, too. A lady whose cart was filled with Christmas decorations pulled out a $20 bill and slipped it into the red kettle.

A man in a cowboy hat, blue jeans and boots dropped in a 10-spot. After my brief two-hour and 20-minute shift, the kettle had $172.70, according to the official count back at the Salvation Army main office.

But Wayne Hite might have been the most charitable of all. He wore suspenders and smoked little Santa Fe cigars. He sat on a bench outside the Wal-Mart while his wife shopped inside. For 30 minutes when I wasn’t so sure I could pull this off, Hite told stories about the Salvation Army, himself and his friends.

“You’ll do well,” he assured.

Maybe the best charity was from Eddy.

After all, she could have put me up to a challenge and placed me at the Music City Mall north entrance where few people enter.

“I could put a naked lady back there, and I couldn’t get money,” she said. “I could put a Dallas Cowboys cheer-leader there and not make money.”

A blister on my finger was enough from the bell. Imagine the injuries from wearing a cheerleading outfit.