John Gardner, Author at Virtual Music Office

Secret Service Encounters

News and Happenings, Personal experience, Respect / John Gardner

With all the attention on the Secret Service at the Trump rally in Butler, I thought I’d organize some recollections and experiences the few times I’ve been around the Secret Service, including when VP Bush came to announce his running mate, when VP Quayle came to our local parade….and more. I am writing this shortly after the assassination attempt on Donald Trump.

When VP Bush came to announce/introduce his running mate

When Vice President George H.W. Bush chose Dan Quayle to be his running mate, they made the announcement in Huntington. The Secret Service started showing up several days in advance. They were noticed walking around the Courthouse and in/out of the businesses close by.

I was in the small Christian bookstore just across the street from the courthouse a day or so before the visit and commented to the shop owner that she would have a great view. No. The SS had told her to be closed and away from the window several hours prior.

Joan and I joined the huge crowd at the courthouse, including on the railroad tracks (trains all stopped, of course). We could see people on top of buildings with binoculars. Noticing a couple sitting in their apartment building window across the tracks from the courthouse, shortly after I commented about them – they were gone. There must have been SS agents on or in that building.

There were pairs of agents at every corner of the Courthouse roof with their extra large binoculars.

Before they came to the courthouse, the band students and their instruments were searched. A helicopter started flying and hovering as it was announced the VP was about 30 minutes out.

When VP Quayle was in the local parade

They won the election and Quayle announced he would participate in the local parade. Joan and I were on the curb, video camera in hand. About 2-3 times, a pair of Secret Service agents would walk down the edge of the street. A block ahead of the VP was a flatbed truck of photographers followed by the armored car with guys holding the doors open. In between was the VP and his wife.

In front of that, where there had been a single SS agent on each side of the street, there were about a half a dozen, walking in single file along the edge of the street. The SS agent was repeating, “Do NOT step into the street.” A local policeman behind him would then echo with,

“And he means it.”

When VP Quayle visited his parents

These visits were not announced and were not public events. A friend of mine, who lives a moderately short distance from the Quayle home, was on his roof using a nail gun to affix shingles when a SS helicopter hovered over him while agents with binoculars checked out what he was doing.

When VP Biden spoke at our son’s commencement

Our son was receiving his PhD in a commencement ceremony that included over 5,000 undergrads. VP Biden was the keynote speaker. The instructions we received included that we should arrive about three hours early and be in our seats two hours prior. It was in a football stadium, with numerous entrances, all with electronic machines and several SS agents checking purses, bags, and bodies. Since we were in our hot, sunny seats two hours early, there was plenty of time to check out some of the SS preparations, such as:

In the Press Box. We were directly across from the press box and could see periodic movement through several windows.
On top of the Press Box.
At the scoreboard.
Several places around the field perimeter and locations throughout the stands.
On the platform, in front and behind it. What impressed me most was that all the time we were there, a solitary agent stood watch at the podium on the platform.
On buildings adjacent to the stadium.
…and probably several places we couldn’t see.

When the procession entered the stadium (University officials, VP Biden, Professors, etc) the SS agents were but a few paces away…enough to escape the pictures, but close enough if needed.

I may add these to my “Stories Through My Ages” memoir…

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You wanted a water break?

Leave a Comment / Assistant Directing, High Schools, Marching Band, Personal experience, Respect, Teaching, Teaching Music / John Gardner

Someone tweeted a prompt, “that one time at band camp”. This was my response. Did this several times. Official practice for the fire fighters. Great fun for hot teens during band camp.

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My 1976 Senior Recital

College Prep, Personal experience / John Gardner

My recital was not in the recital hall at the Fine Arts building, but rather at the main concert hall at a prime-time-like time. It was surprisingly well attended, well past those who were required to be there. Joan was there.

I had a piano major friend play to give me a break (for endurance sake). He’s not on the recording.

I had a grad student for an accompanist for multiple reasons: The piano parts, especially for the Bernstein and the Nielsen, are extremely difficult. My professor was challenging to work with and most piano majors were afraid of him. I was too, but I had nowhere to go.

The recording (Soundcloud link below) is in a different order from the program because, right before I went out on stage, my professor knocked one of my clarinets off the table onto the floor and was doing instrument repair during my recital. Note that this is a nearly 50yr old recording, with microphone and recording to match.

Some notes about the pieces.

The Weber Concerto No. 2 Alla Polacca is probably my most favorite piece I’ve ever played because it plays to my strengths. I blew a note toward the beginning and was expecting my teacher to reach out with one of those shepherds hooks and pull me off stage…. but once I got past that, nerves settled. Other than ‘almost’ losing a note, I think I pretty much hit them all, including the last page which has notes going by in a sustained rate of @ 18 notes per second.

The “Messiaen” might be one of my least favorite of all time. If you listen, consider skipping that one. Professor studied at Paris Conservatory and all senior recitals had a French piece, it seemed.

The Nielsen Concerto is 20 minutes long…. as one of the most difficult cadenza sections ever. At least at that time, it was listed at the top of the difficulty of IU School of Music’s second semester senior list. Oh, and it includes a snare drum.

The Bernstein Sonata is cool. Part of the second movement (1:18) is 5/8 in 1 with the piano and clarinet playing completely different parts (4:50)and coming together. That was always high risk, but it came off well.

https://soundcloud.com/…/senior-recital-john-gardner…

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I attribute our 47yr marriage success to three main things

Personal experience, Respect / John Gardner

Today is the 45th Anniversary for wife Joan and me. Tomorrow is Father’s Day, which was mentioned in today’s podcast from Morning Wire. They mentioned the difficulty of those growing up without a father in the house, especially when it comes to later maintaining a marriage and family. I come from a broken home. So does Joan. We talked about that during college as we had heard the statistics of what sounded like our marriage would be doomed. And yet, here we are. I attribute our 45yr marriage success to three main things.

We were committed Christians and stayed active in the church, raising our family in the church.

Because we both experienced parents divorcing and the devastating effects that has on the children, we were committed to never letting that happen to our children. We were both at nearly every swim meet, baseball game, theater performance and concerts. There were a few times where we had to split because both boys would have something going on at the same time and sometimes in different cities. But we never just sent them off. We were there.

That we spent so much time working together in small office environments, the types of temptations that seem to creep into a lot of marriages were never present in ours. Neither of us ever considered anyone else. In our first three years of marriage, we taught at the same school and shared an office. Later, after John left education, we shared a business office for over two decades at QDP Corporation.

And we never let anyone tell us how to raise our children. We left education to start our family. Joan wanted to be a stay at home mom. My freedom of schedule allowed me to be at almost every t-ball, baseball, swim meet, and concert that either of our sons was in. I’ll never say we did everything right, but our sons are both successful in what they are doing. They have always, as have we, self-sufficient.

Are we experts? No. But ours has been a successful family for 45 years.

Here’s to 50 years and beyond.

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Bullying, Band and Best Practices

4 Comments / Classroom Teacher, College Prep, High Schools, Music Department, Parenting, Respect, School Security, Teaching, Teaching Music / John Gardner

By John Gardner

UPDATE: Be sure to read the parent comments at the end of this article.

Over a decade after high school graduation, he told his parents he was bullied as a high school freshman, not telling them at the time because he feared they’d make a big deal of it.

He DID go to a teacher who ignored or brushed aside his emotional plea. In his valedictorian speech at graduation three years later, when he listed the “Top 10 Things I Learned in High School”, one of them was…..

“….that my head really does fit in a gym locker.”

Still no response. This was before all the more recent publicity of the terribly negative lifetime impact that bullying can have….but

…there is no excuse for inaction. EVER!

Fortunately, this story doesn’t end tragically…. but that doesn’t make it right.

Bullying in Band…..surely not, right? …

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Bullying, Band and Best Practices Read More »

Never block a fire truck

High Schools, Personal experience, Respect, Social Media / John Gardner

Fire trucks getting through — Parking on both sides makes the middle narrow.

I was coming down the one-way street where we live. There is parking on both sides, but that doesn’t leave much room. Years ago, when I had a conversion van, I managed to take off someone’s mirror with mine. (Yes, I dealt with it.)

On this particular trip, in addition to normal cars parked, I encountered a lawn service truck, an Amazon van, a City Truck and one collecting trash…and I barely made it through with my car. I commented in a post that a fire truck wouldn’t make it and was reminded of a couple of Dad’s firetruck stories and events, one courtesy of my sister.

What happens when you block a fire truck?

Fire trucks — Backdraft, a realistic presentation of real fire fighting

The movie, ‘Backdraft’ fascinated me. Dad was a 32-yr veteran firefighter in a full-time city department that had about ten “houses” around town. He was one of three “Chiefs”. He said “Backdraft” was pretty accurately done. I asked about the scene where there is a car parked in front of the hydrant and they break the windows and take the hose through the car.

“We would probably just use the truck to push the car out of the way. The car would be a wreck, but don’t put your car between my truck and our getting to a fire.”

Long driveway attracts speeding drivers during the school day — Problematic long driveway at Holmes High School.

Entrance Gate Holmes High School — Entrance gate to Holmes High School. What you can’t see are the iron-works gates that matched the fencing to the right.

What happened when they blocked my Dad’s fire trucks?

Close to that in real life that involved Dad and his trucks happened at my high school around 1980 when my sister was a sophomore. There is a long driveway through the school and at times they would have problems with people speeding through there during school. On one particular day, someone chained shut the large ironworks gate. They weren’t supposed to do that, I’m sure, but those drivers and that long driveway could be disturbing and a safety concern.

There was a fire alarm and Dad was on duty.

When the trucks arrived at the school, they encountered the locked main gate. Guess what they did?

Dad never talked about that story, but sister tells me she remembers faculty talking about the Fire Department “busting the gates down”.

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Safety, Transparency and Reputation when Coaching Students

Leave a Comment / Classroom Teacher, College Prep, Communication, Consulting, High Schools, Parenting, School Security, Teaching Music / John Gardner

By John Gardner

For a short time during my earliest teen years, without concern about walking to and into his home, I studied piano with a single guy who lived a few blocks away. During high school freshman year, I took lessons with a college girl who came to our school and went with me into a sound-proofed practice room. Later in high school, I would travel weekly to an area band director’s home for instruction. Concerns about safety transparency and reputation never came up.

But times are different now. Priests, coaches, and teachers are convicted of having inappropriate relationships with children and students, creating a sensitive and suspicious society that dissuades good teachers and students from participating in the time-tested tradition of individualized instruction.

The concept of innocent until proven guilty does not apply. No one can afford even an accusation. A School of Performing Arts that provides private lessons for area children put windows in all the classroom doors, instituted a parental sign-in/out procedure, and has a staff member walk in on every lesson every time. Band directors schedule lessons in busy offices or in large ensemble rooms full of distractions. College students video lessons with middle/high school students, not only for critique but also for security.

One band director told me that

…you don’t have to be guilty….an accusation can destroy a reputation and/or cost your job. And unfortunately, even after proven innocent, the doubts, questions and hesitations can continue to damage a reputation that took decades to build. Teachers have to be soooo careful.

The very nature of individualized music instruction almost mandates that student and teacher be alone in a room with a closed door. How do we take the legitimate safety concerns that student, parent, and teacher share along with the teacher’s concern for reputation (and employment) and still provide specialized, accelerated training?

SAFETY is everyone’s concern even if from different perspectives. Be aware and be careful.

TEACHERS…

invite parents to sit in or be nearby during lessons.
- My experience: When I teach 1-1 lessons in my home, parents can relax in my living room while I work with the student in the dining room. A 6th grader’s mother would bring a book and sit in the room.
leave a door open or at least ensure it is unlocked and/or has a window. Enable anyone to walk in on you. That delay while you get up to open the door from the inside can cause undue suspicion or concern (and increase interruption time).
schedule lessons when others are around. Avoid evenings or non-school days when teaching at school or make sure someone else is home if the student is coming to your home studio. Do everything reasonable to remove any question andensure both student and parent are comfortable. Keep in mind that teens are increasingly cautioned to beware of one-on-one situations with adults. Respect that.
- My experience: When a mother requested I work with her student over holiday break, I scheduled it at school along with an appointment for another teacher to drop something off to me during the lesson time. I left the band room door opened and set up the chairs in clear view from the hallway so passing janitors could see and hear.
video or audio record the session. Make sure everyone knows. Place the camera so both teacher and student are visible, but NOT in a way that makes the student uncomfortable or could set you up for a different kind of complaint.
- My experience: When I teach lessons via Skype, I ask that the camera be pointed so that I can see either fingers, embouchure or both, so I am usually looking at a profile view of the student’s top front. When girls start adjusting their clothes, there is some discomfort. Be aware, empathetic, and be careful. Explain your reasoning — or move the camera to remove the discomfort.
if you have a regular coaching schedule, post the schedule. If you have a website with a calendar, parents (and students) are better reminded and informed.

PARENTS…

check references. In addition to safety, you want to make sure you’re getting a good product (teacher). If the teacher is an outsider coming to the school, the school should have conducted a background check. Ask.
sit in or be in the area, at least periodically. Sitting in an adjacent room can provide reasonable privacy while often enabling you to hear your child play. They won’t do that for you at home, right? Bring a book.
for virtual lessons (via Skype, for example), be in the area. You don’t have to stand over the child’s shoulder, but listen in and even walk in a couple times….say hi to the teacher.

STUDENTS…

meet a new teacher for the first time with a parent and in public.
go with your gut.
if anything makes you uncomfortable, speak up or get out. Nearly 100% of the time, you are either mis-interpreting or the teacher is completely unaware and will respond and adjust. Don’t destroy an opportunity based on your misunderstanding a teacher’s oversight.
if a parent is dropping you off, have a cell phone to call if the teacher is not there, you finish early (or going over), or you otherwise need parental pick up.
- My experience: It was during a storm and I was mid-lesson after school when the power went out. Emergency lighting came on, but not enough to continue.
if you are going to a lesson, tell your parents (or someone) when, where and for how long.
- My experience: I’ve had an unnecessarily disgruntled parent when I scheduled some after school coaching with a student who never got around to communicating and mom didn’t know what was going on ’til the student didn’t get off the bus. My mistake was assuming the parent knew.

TRANSPARENCY helps everyone.

Sometimes there is a drop off in parental involvement and in student/parent communication during high school. Teens want more responsibility and independence and both parent and teacher should strive to help them in those areas. Assumptions often cause problems, however, and most issues I’ve ever experienced in the triangular relationship with parent and student elevate because somebody “assumed”. Several years ago, I gave each of my business office employees a personalized, engraved magnet that said, simply:

Assume Nothing!

TEACHERS…provide a list of expectations and policies.

Payment. How much, how often and what happens when they don’t. Are materials (music) included?
Cancellations when you cancel, when student cancels, how much notice and what if there isn’t any?
Minimum requirements; lessons per month, practice time, materials such as tuners or metronome, a functioning instrument with adequate supplies (reeds, etc)…
Privacy. Don’t share student/parent contact info or details about what happens during lessons. That is why they are called “private” lessons.
Communication. Be easy to contact. Determine whether your communication is to be with the student or parent. Any written communication with the student should be copied to a parent, when possible, including texts, emails or other types of media messages.

REPUTATIONS are slow to build and quick to crumble.

Students and parents need to realize how important that is to the teacher, especially when their very livelihood depends on it. Younger or single teachers need to be hyper-aware, but no one is too old, fat, bald or ugly for legitimate concern and caution.

Without an element of TRUST, this simply cannot work. Hopefully, the teacher has ‘earned’ some trust from both the student and the parental. It is unfortunate that we hear via national news when trust has been abused. That is horrible. But it is also a very, VERY small percentage of people. My advice to all…. in a nutshell:

Be Aware & Take Care!

Thanks for reading.

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Hostage release button pushers

News and Happenings / John Gardner

The reporting on the recent hostage rescue is maddening. Some of the button pushers for me:

CNN reports about hostages “released”. NO! They weren’t RELEASED, they were RESCUED.

A BBC reporter asks an Israeli government representative if the IDF should have given prior warning before the raid. ARE YOU KIDDING ME?

All mentioning civilian casualties. These hostages were jailed in RESIDENCES in HIGH DENSITY areas. Noa was in the home of a DOCTOR, where wife, daughter, grandkids were all living. They talk about the doctor “executed” in front of his grandchildren, and that other female adults in the house were “executed” or, at least shot. They weren’t EXECUTED, they were ELIMINATED.

They talk about the high number of Palestinians killed in the operation. There was a fierce firefight as the IDF rescuers tried to leave. Where did all these peaceful people get those weapons? Of course the IDF uses overwhelming force. You cannot say the casualties were innocents. Were there innocents among them. Probably….as per Hamas strategy.

Want a cease fire? It is easy. 1) Release the hostages. 2) Surrender. The fighting will stop immediately…and Israel will become as involved in rebuilding Gaza as allowed, and similar to the way the USA was involved in rebuilding Germany and Japan after we destroyed and defeated them.

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Riley Gaines podcast with Middle School Athletes

News and Happenings, Respect / John Gardner

Just listened to a podcast interview https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/gaines-for-girls-with-riley-gaines/id1696360492?i=1000657133794 with four of the five middle school (M.I.D.D.L.E. S.C.H.O.O.L.) girls who stepped out rather than compete against a boy in their track meet’s shot put. The girls were punished and not allowed to compete at (at least) their next meet. The parents have taken the school board to court (in progress). The girls have subsequently been permitted to compete.

The boy has since been accused of sexual harassment. I’m not even going to quote the accusation of what he was going to do to a girl with his non girl body part. If you want to see, here is a link and article… https://x.com/ReduxxMag/status/1789013744812515708

Girls should not have to compete against boys in sports where sex matters. (Compete in band. That is ok.) They should not have to worry about boys in their restrooms and locker rooms. They should not have to endure what these girls described and to be scared in what should be safe spaces.

Why do middle school girls have to be the adults to try to protect themselves and their sport?

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Eden Golan Hurricane and October Rain

News and Happenings / John Gardner

I have never followed Eurovision or Israel singer, Eden Golan. The reason it popped on my radar this year was because Eden Golan’s song, “Hurricane” faced opposition and succeeded while representing herself and her country admirably.

They forced her to change some of the words, and even the title. She renamed “October Rain” to “Hurricane”. Here is her performance at Eurovision. Through all the protests and jeers, when she performed, she captured the world.

They forced her to change some of the words, and even the title. She renamed “October Rain” to “Hurricane”. Here is the first-ever public performance of October Rain… See the comparison of the words below.

She had to deal with protesters (over 20,000 outside her hotel room) jeering and even childish acts from other contestants during a press conference for the finalists. The person next to her has head covered … and at the other end of the table is someone pretending to be bored.

In the press conference, you can see the head covered contestant next to her as she is asked,

Have you ever thought that by being here, you bring risk and danger for other participants and public?

She responded with class and grace.

Not only are there judges at the event, but participating countries can vote. Note that these countries had contestants participating, and they still supported Israel.

Israel had the #2 highest votes from around the world … and ended up 5th place overall.

After a heroine’s reception in her return to Israel, Eden sang the original song, “October Rain” before a huge crowd at Tel Aviv’s Hostage Square.

https://youtu.be/5TEtoEhrAQg?si=bS6JmBDlMo-6bAvs

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John Gardner

Secret Service Encounters