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Even with Polio, she always made lemonade

Family, News and Happenings, Personal experience, Repost, Respect /

March is both “Women’s History” and “Disabilities Awareness” month. My hero, in both those categories, was my polio-inflicted mother.

Beulah McCormick was born in 1922 in a house (not a hospital) with an outside toilet. Her dad was a mean, verbally and physically abusive Irishman (McCormick) who was in the trenches of France during World War I. Growing up during the great depression, one of Mom’s journal entries stated, “There were no toys”.

At 12 yrs old, she was inflicted with one of the most cruel diseases ever…..polio.

In a 1935 pic taken 1 year after her infection, you can see that her legs are different sizes. She is likely bracing herself with her left arm (good arm).

Iron lungs enabling many polio survivors to breathe

She wasn’t as bad as some, who had to spend the rest of their lives in “iron lungs“, but her body was infected as if there were a vertical divide between left and right. Her right arm and leg were smaller, shorter, and weaker than her left. She had to buy two pairs of shoes because her feet were different sizes. She could write right-handed but picked things up with her left.

She refused to allow her disability to handicap life, evidenced by her high school class of 1940 1/2 voting her “most athletic”.

Hobbies included hunting, fishing, horseback riding, swimming, and gardening. She was a proficient typist and avid reader. She walked with a significant limp until her last four years when her back and knees just couldn’t do it anymore.

Her teenage friendship with Betty Swindler was so strong the Swindler family wanted to pay Mom’s way to go to college, but the proud papa wouldn’t allow it.

She thrived despite her parents.

Her childhood included going with parents (no choice) to area saloons to watch them drink and dance.

Somehow she got involved in a local church where she met her future husband. They had 5 children before divorcing affecting siblings from age 1 to 12.

So how does a divorced, polio survivor without a car, find a job and raise five children?

She was qualified, but never accepted welfare. Eventually, she took a job and spent about 25 yrs as an Activities Director at the Nursing Home she would retire from, move in to, and die in …. only two blocks from our house so she (and we) could walk to and from. I used to tease her for getting paid to play games all day.

My sisters had to experience daycare in a home nearby. Mom cried about that.

Life was plain, but she didn’t complain.

She paid her debts. Thankfully, the pediatrician allowed her to make $5/month payments.

We walked two blocks to a small neighborhood church my father’s parents helped start. She put a dollar in the plate and, when someone complained about the six of us for her dollar a week, swallowed her pride so we could have a better upbringing than she did. Kudos to the church for installing a handrail on the two steps going into the sanctuary. They did try. 

She encouraged us to sell lemonade to the golfers at the course down the street. Those lemonade sales paid for a bicycle I wanted and then for my part of a new clarinet.

Sometimes she got some extra sugar for her lemonade. Mom’s Aunt Georgia passed away and I distinctly remember walking with her and her uncle to the kitchen door that went into their garage.

“Beulah. Georgia wanted you to have her car. Here are the keys.”

Chores were a reality. She organized us in rotations for dish washing, providing a step stool until we were each tall enough to reach into the sink. Until I left for college, it was mostly my job to push the non-motorized mower, and I was not always the compliant, cooperative teen.

There was one episode where she was following me back and forth over the lawn convincing me with her belt that I should continue.

Another job I loathed was cleaning the dog pen. Grass and hedge trimming, leaf raking, and garbage taking were regular chores. The Christmas decorations weren’t so bad and I liked putting the flag out….but had to take it down at night.

As much as we didn’t have, Mom always helped us understand that there were other people worse off and that they needed our help. At Christmastime, she would ask us to give up a toy to be donated to a “needy” family.

When someone would knock at our back door asking for food, she would fix a fried egg or peanut butter sandwich.

Both parents were hunters, and when dad left, she kept her little (she couldn’t hold a full-sized rifle) “over/under” gun; a combination 22 rifle and 410 shotgun. I got to watch her use it once. There was a bad flood and the water from the river about a mile away covered the golf course, came up over the 4-foot wall at the end of our street and stopped about two houses from ours. In the aftermath, there was a terrible, thankfully temporary neighborhood rat infestation. She instructed us to get into the house when she saw a huge rat on our side yard sidewalk. From the bedroom window, we heard the ‘pop’ and saw the rat briefly stand up on its hind legs before tottering over.

Good shot, Mom.

I’m not sure how I got started in 5th-grade band. With all the other bills, I have no idea how Mom managed to pay off that rent-to-own clarinet that I played at Tenth District School. Seems the band teacher, James Copenhaver, in his very first year of teaching, convinced her that my aural testing was so high that she really needed to get me involved in band.

Another of her favorite stories was during my high school band time. Watching the end of a rehearsal, she heard Mr. Copenhaver say, “Gardner, you march like a cow.” She went up to him afterward and went, “Moooooo” and then identified herself with, “I’m the cow’s mother.”

Mom who taught me to drive, to shave, to do my laundry (for college), to polish my shoes, and to type. She made me take piano lessons, allowed me to take clarinet lessons and somehow managed to be there for most major events. She taught me conservation techniques; the thermostat seldom went above 60 in the winter. There was no air conditioning and the summer window fan had to be turned off before bedtime.

I learned the difference between a need and a want. She took care of my needs.

She wasn’t able to buy many gifts. One year, I had asked for a clock-radio. To make the gift opening last longer, she hid it and placed clues all around the property to help me find it. Like most teens, I wanted a car….so on my 16th birthday, she gave me a little battery operated VW bug and made it clear that would be the only car she would ever buy me.

There was an extended episode where her back was really messed up from her years of walking with legs of different lengths. There was a really hard-core brace that she had to wear for a while and I had to help her get it on and off every day. By the grace of God, she improved and was able to get rid of it. She confessed years later that she was afraid she was losing her ability to walk, which would have cost her the job she had….and she feared not being able to raise us.

We didn’t wear the latest fashions, but always had something respectable to wear.

My brothers always got my hand-me-downs. Sorry. We were all in band and had instruments and everything we needed for that. Three of us used my beginning clarinet and the pro-level horn I bought in high school. 

Grandpa McCormick moved in for several of his later years. After living alone for several years (Grandma Mamie died my high school freshman year), he married a lady who stole nearly everything he owned. Terrified and trounced, he came to live with Mom.

So after all the terrible things she had endured over the years, she would be his care-provider.

I was off to college and then away, so I didn’t have to deal with him much. On visits, at least, he seemed to have mellowed, although he could still unleash a verbal barrage on occasion. I hope he paid some rent to help with the finances, but I never heard and never asked.

Mom did well raising the five of us. No one is rich, but all five are self-sufficient and raising (or raised) a pretty good next generation.

Mom paid for all of her wedding because her parents would not.

In a 2001, handwritten letter, she wrote,

“my life has been very fulfilling and rewarding. Sometimes I am confined to “cell 423” (house number), but this week I went to the Reds ballgame (via radio) and “watched a horse race (TV) at Churchill Downs, tearing at the playing of ‘My Old Kentucky Home and ended in a “musical production in Branson, Missouri, where I had no parking hassels and had the best seat in the house.”

That was Mom, always finding the best in everybody, finding good in her situations and being thankful for what she did have instead of complaining about what she didn’t.

She used life’s sour lemons to make the best, sweetest lemonade.

Love you and miss you Mom…..and will see you soon.

PS Over the last several years, Mom always accused me of bringing the cold, nasty weather of Northern Indiana with me when I would come to visit. She would have said that again about her own funeral with the dismal driving rain that prevented the graveside ceremony.

“I know, Mom….. but I wanted you to know I was there.”

Beulah celebrating her 85th birthday, the last she would celebrate at her Baltimore Ave home.

Even with Polio, she always made lemonade Read More »

Selmer Series 10 and mouthpiece updates

College Prep, Family, News and Happenings, Personal experience, Public Schools, Repost, Solo Prep, Teaching /
selmer clarinetAccording to the 4-digit serial number, my Selmer/Paris Series 10 clarinet was manufactured in 1967. In 1968, my hs band director told my mother I had to get one. Not optional. He might as well have told her I needed a Mercedes for my first car. Dad made me a 50/50 deal, and after selling lemonade to golfers and hanging ad papers on doors … I got it.
I used it all through hs. It got me Solo/Ensemble medals, traveled with me and Holmes Band to KMEA and MENC, to Murfreesboro, TN and Virginia Beach, VA…. to All-State Orchestra, to band clinic and select bands, to summer music camps at Eastern Kentucky and Morehead State Universities, and followed me to Europe/U.S.S.R. with the United States Collegiate Wind Band in the summer between hs and college. I had to replace it at UK bc the clarinet prof kept saying things like,
“That was awful. I can’t tell if it was you or that crappy clarinet.”
clarinet2Anyway, I just opened packages of cleaning supplies, including swabs, key and bore oil, silver polish, swabs, disinfectant and more….. I want to see if it still has all the notes and speed it once did. Students have heard me talk about instruments with “speed buttons”.
Oh, working on my 1973-ish Buffet R-13 also. Both are considered “vintage” at this point.

Selmer Series 10 and mouthpiece updates Read More »

Rossini

High Schools, Music Department, Personal experience, Repost, Solo Prep, Teaching Music, Technology in the Classroom, Throw Back Thursday /

Clarinet soloA few years ago, probably the last time I played thru a top-tier piece, I was alone on the local hs stage using Smart-accompaniment on a laptop and audio recording via phone…. I was probably preparing to assign it as I had made cuts for solo festival limits. I did flub the final 38-note run up to that high Ab (couldn’t hold onto it)…. but the rest of the 7-pages went well and fast, phone audio microphone considered.

Anyway… I recently shared the online link for someone to listen for some of the things we’re working on … (scales, arpeggios, chromatics, articulation, ornaments, etc). Told the parental I was going to look for the music. FOUND IT, well Joan did. No, not going to assign (yet), but do intend to use it for the above-mentioned fundamentals.

Rossini Read More »

Students are not Starfish

1 Comment / Classroom Teacher, High Schools, Public Schools, Repost, Respect, Teaching, Uncategorized /

Starfish on the beachby John Gardner (via LinkedIn)

The starfish story (not my original) is about someone trying to make a difference and I think of it periodically when I find myself trying to balance that healthy, professional detachment from the lives of individual students with the reality and significance of those lives and my desire to make a difference by being more than “just” a classroom teacher.

Working with students is not a life or death proposition, of course, but some seem to get washed up on the beach. Here’s the story and 10 ways to make a difference. Those 10 ways represent my core beliefs in teaching and working with teens.

The man was out for a walk on the beach when he noticed a boy frantically picking things up and throwing them into the ocean. Curious, he approached the boy to discover that he was picking up starfish that had washed up on to the beach — and was throwing them back into the water.
“Son, what are you doing?” the man asked.
“The tide is going out and these starfish got left behind. I’m throwing them back into the water to save them.”
“But son, there are hundreds of miles of beach. You can’t possibly make a difference.”
As the boy picked up another starfish, he threw it into the water and then turned and said to the man,

“I made a difference to THAT one.”

———————————

Teen years can be trying times.  Parents may be fighting, separating, dating and remarrying, which means the teen now has to not only deal with a break up of a foundation in his/her life, but often now has to live in multiple households. Some have to adjust to step-siblings, job losses, financial struggles and more. Then, there are the complexities of school with seemingly unending pressures to perform, trying to get through the dating games, often without an anchor or example to follow. Influenced by increasingly negative social standards, or lack of standards….. teens can get caught in the rise and falling tides. Most learn how to negotiate life’s trying currents, but can turn the wrong way, make a miscalculation or poor decision — and find themselves high and dry on the beach…..and they need help. Not every student needs, wants or will accept a teacher’s help. Sometimes the teacher’s effort is both unappreciated and unsuccessful.

But try we must…because we CAN make a difference “to THAT one”.

Ten ways to make a difference:

  1. Be real. You can’t fake it with teens, they will see right through you. If you can’t be real, you should not be there. Please leave education.
  2. Be available. How easy is it for a teen to say to YOU, “Can I talk to you?”? What if it is not during class or immediately after school? In how many different ways are you available and do students know and understand that? Do they know if it is ok to email, call, text or instant message you? When a teen says they need to talk, somebody needs be available. Be that person. Consider your use of texting and social media.
  3. Be there. Yes, you’re “on duty” at school. What about when a student is in the hospital, at the funeral home, pitching in the softball/baseball game, getting baptized, being awarded Eagle Scout status, or when their garage-type band is playing at the coffee shop? Take your spouse or your kids and just be where you can when you can. They will notice.
  4. Trust them. If you want trust, you need to give some. I have a periodic discussion about trust, abusing it, losing it and the difficulty in earning it a second time. Read: “I WANT To Trust You“. Teens make mistakes and the trust area is one of those places where they can mess up. But help them learn. Take a reasonable chance. Yes, you’ll get burned some….but you will also empower leaders to rise up.
  5. Respect them. There is a good chance they will recognize and return it.
  6. Advocate for them. Of course you have students who are financially challenged and could benefit from music lessons, a better instrument, participation in a select ensemble or some other training. You won’t always succeed, but try to find funding to help. Call the employer to help him get that job. Write a letter to help her get that scholarship. Help them with college applications their parents can’t (or won’t).
  7. Listen, really listen. Teens typically think that people don’t listen. They think adults are quick to lecture, criticize and correct, but are slow to listen. You don’t always have to have the answer. Sometimes there isn’t an obvious answer. Sometimes listening is the answer, because in allowing them to share, you enable them to find their own answer. Unless they are sharing something illegal, dangerous, hear them out. Don’t argue. Don’t interrupt. Don’t pre-judge. And when you can, share your wisdom, experience, expertise and advice.
  8. Expect and Encourage Excellence. Students will complain when the load is heavy and the challenge is significant, but they know, even when they won’t admit, that achieving excellence requires work. They want to achieve and succeed. Being there for them doesn’t mean lowering your standards. Make them stretch. They’ll appreciate you eventually, even if not today.
  9. Don’t assume. A question I ask often is, “You okay?” Simple question….and sometimes they shrug it off, but there have been many times for me that this gives them the opening to ask for help.
  10. Don’t give up. It can be difficult, disappointing and even deflating when teens mess up. Don’t give up on them. That’s what the rest of society wants to do sometimes…. They will be disappointed that they disappointed you, but your unconditional support (not approving what they do) is vitally important to them.

Students are not Starfish Read More »

Solo Contest Checklist

High Schools, Repost, Respect, Solo Prep, Teaching /

ratingI prepared this list for one of my woodwind students and modified it some to include other instruments. There are links within this article to other articles I’ve written about literature selection, accompanists and the judging scoresheet categories.

Pre-performance

The basics. Music, instrument. People have forgotten both.

Solo Part – ORIGINAL for judge.  Measures numbered. 

Have you paid your accompanist? Customary, usually following performance. More about respect, preparation and appreciation for your accompanist, click here.

BRASS.

Valve oil

WOODWINDS.

Backup reed – in case something happens to yours that day.

Mouthpiece cap – Keep on when moving – protects and looks professional.

PERCUSSION.

Backup sticks/mallets.

Arrive at the school/venue about an hour before your performance time. Find your performance room and then you can go to warm-up. Don’t over-practice. Just review your challenging spots. Your ensemble should run through the piece. Note that these warm-up rooms can be noisy.

Performance Room

Arrive at performance room before your time. You can go in ahead of time (or anytime) and listen to other performers. Most in Group 2 will be h/s. If your accompanist is late because of accompanying someone else, just explain that to the door person or judge.

Have the book opened to your solo when you present it to the judge.

If judge asks questions, answer politely (as you always are).

Sit or stand. Your choice. I prefer standing. Judge may want to see your fingers, so don’t put the music stand directly between you and the judge. Be able to make eye contact with your accompanist.

Do not start until the judge tells you to. He/she may be completing notes on the previous performer. If permission received, play tuning note with piano – last chance to check your reed.

Be prepared to introduce yourself, your school, and your piece (title/composer).

When you finish, especially if there is any applause, a slight bow is appropriate to acknowledge. Applause is the audience saying thank you — a bow is your thanking them for the applause. Recognize your accompanist.

You will not get your music immediately – probably after the performer who follows you. You will not get your scoresheet. Those go to your band director at the end of the day. 

The door monitor will write your rating on the wall schedule.

Performance categories (sheet may vary slightly)

A separate post with addition scoresheet categories ===> HERE.

Intonation. Are you in tune with the piano? With each other (ensemble)? Do you have individual notes that are out of tune? Accuracy to printed pitches.

Tone. Resonance, clarity, control, focus, consistency, warmth.

Rhythm. Accuracy of note values, rest values, duration, pulse, steadiness, correctness of meter.

Technique. Facility, accuracy, articulation, fingerings.

Interpretation/Musicianship. Style, phrasing, tempo, dynamics, emotional involvement.

Performance factors. Choice of literature, appropriate appearance (related to performance), poise, posture, general conduct, mannerisms, facial expressions. Formal dress is not required, but jeans with holes and advertisement t-shirts will not only affect the appearance score, but also — judges can decide much about you before you play your first note. You are “on” from the time you take your performance position until you exit.

Did I forget anything? Let me know so I can improve this post for the next time. And note that rules per state are different… I tried to be generic in that regard.

Solo Contest Checklist Read More »

5 Considerations to Making a leap of Faith

Leave a Comment / Classroom Teacher, High Schools, Marching Band, Music Department, Music Performance, Repost, Respect, Teaching, Teaching Music /

Leap of faithby John Gardner

This graphic illustrates a scenario we all face, individually, in business, in school as well as in music ensembles. Most of us, at least once, have been to the edge, looked down, looked across and pondered the possibilities. It is easy to say you want to get better, but how do you make that leap to the other side?

Realize that not everyone WANTS to get to the other side.

Many are satisfied with the way things are, represented by this marching band member attitude:

I am okay where I am. I am not last chair, I can play my part reasonably well, I can pass the playing test. I see those people on the other side…..so much pressure, so much work, and for what? Band is a good social group. It is a good place to find a date, to make friends, to feel connected. I enjoy the bus rides, the longer the better. The band parent provided food at competitions is good and I like the freedom during the down time to hang with my friends and watch some other bands.

You are, after all, standing on solid ground. It is safe where you are. You KNOW where you are and are in your comfort zone. You look over the edge and see danger. You could fall, you could fail. You could get hurt.

WANT it….with everything that is within you.

You hear the musician who plays the more difficult solo or watch the marching band put on a crowd cheering performance. You see the elation at the award ceremony and YOU WANT THAT.

In “The Return of the Jedi”, as Luke Skywalker finally stands before his ultimate enemy, the Emperor says to the young Jedi who is viewing and considering his weapon,

You want this, don’t you?

Know that small, safe, baby steps won’t make it.

If you stand on the edge, look down and take a step, you will fall. The gap is wider than that and will require a running start LEAP.

Practice and Prepare to Perform!

Olympians don’t just show up at the games. Basketball players spend hours behind the scenes practicing boring free throws and doing exhausting repetitive fundamentals up and down the floor. The ice skater doesn’t decide at the start of the performance that a quad would be a good idea.

There is no short cut to success. You must be willing to pay the price.

The ice skater going for the quad is literally a “leap of faith”. There is never a guarantee of success, but repetitive practice, falling down, getting hurt, figuring out what went wrong and working harder to get better…..are necessary ingredients to establish confidence and competence to make the jump. A phrase I have used in rehearsals,

Like the ice skater who misses the quad, missing notes (steps, sets) in performance can hurt.

A good cartoon by Tone Deaf Comics illustrates part of this idea.

One more time

Commit to go….and then GO!

No more standing at the edge. No more looking down. No more considering the consequences of failure. Back up, focus on the other side, set your mind and then RUN hard at the edge. When the Israelites were crossing the river Jordan, the waters did not part until the priests feet touched the water, the point at which they demonstrated both faith and commitment (Joshua 3:14).

Once you commit to go, you have to “go all out”. Know where you’re going, practice and prepare, commit and go.

 

 

leap-of-faith-2

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Busy dedication

Assistant Directing, Marching Band, Personal experience, Repost, Respect, Teaching, Teaching Music, Throw Back Thursday /
A cheerleader who cheers first half, runs to the band lineup to perform halftime, and then back to cheer for the second half.

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Is it ever ok for a teacher to LOVE students?

2 Comments / High Schools, Personal experience, Public Schools, Repost, Respect, Teaching, Teaching Music /

There is more to school life than what happens during the academic day. Some academic teachers are also coaches or extracurricular sponsors. Coaches develop strong bonds with their athletes. Music and theater arts teachers spend considerable extracurricular time with students – evenings, weekends, summers. These teacher/student relationships are significant and life long impacting.

Is it ever ok for a teacher to LOVE students?

In a reunion with some of the students from my first teaching job, as they were sharing memories, one person put it this way:

“Come back to teach the students of the students you taught.”

I expected to hear some of the heart-warming stories and did, but one comment caught me off guard a little. As one was listing attributes he appreciated, he included…..

“…and your smile.”

What teachers do you remember most 10-20-30 years out, and for what do you remember them?

Band is the ultimate team.

Unlike a basketball team with its starting five, there is no bench in band. Everybody is in. Everybody is a starter. Few other types of groups will involve people from such varied backgrounds. There are children of doctors and lawyers performing with children of single-parents working multiple jobs or utilizing government help. There are the students who have their own cars and those who need rides, those with the iPhones and the free phones or no phone. You will find students in most bands from every church in the community and others who have never been inside a church.

High school provides a memorable time for teens and parents to be on the same team before graduation and the empty nest.

If only it were like that for all teens.

At this most critical time in their decision-making years, if teens can’t find love, acceptance, encouragement and support from parents, teachers and mentors, they will search for it elsewhere, often with disastrous results leaving them with consequences that change lives and crush dreams.

But even more than TEAM, band is FAMILY…

Most high school athletic teams are together for a “season” — maybe six weeks with a few more for preparation. Band meets in the summer, including band camp which can be 8+hours a day. Then there is every day at school with additional rehearsals in the evenings, plus the Friday football/basketball game and the Saturday competition.

…and more functional than some.

As I stood outside Door 34, she jumped out of the passenger side of the car and ran past me, teary-eyed, crying,

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”

As she went by I saw the papa, for the first time, approaching me and angrily waving a piece of paper.

“How much of this schedule is mandatory?”

I paused, if only for a moment as I thought through his reaction to my answer…

“All of it.”

After grumbling something that I probably couldn’t repeat, he returned to the car and didn’t quite lay rubber in his exit. The daughter was waiting in my office, still crying and apologetic. I hugged her. How does such a sweet daughter have a parent like that?

There are loving parents who are working 2-3 jobs each, going to school and dealing with the challenges of large families – and it is somewhere between difficult and impossible for them to spend a lot of time at football games, parades and competitions. I get that. But what do you say to this parent?

“We need to pull [Benjamin] out of band because he won’t clean his room and he needs to learn respect. He loves band and so this is the only valuable thing we can take away to make our point.”

Or this one?

“Why should I pay money for her to spend time spinning a flag. There are no colleges that will offer scholarships and besides, what job is that going to prepare her for?”

Or to these students?

“Can you please give me something to do. I’ll straighten the library….anything….just don’t make me go home.”

“I have a job so I can earn the money for my band fee, and I keep hiding it, but my mother keeps finding it and taking it.”

“I have to quit music lessons. My dad found out I was using some of my job money for music lessons and says that if I am going to waste my money on that – I can start paying rent.”

“Please don’t try to introduce yourself to my dad. Please don’t. Please, please, please don’t. He is not a nice man.”

I want to share the LOVE they may be missing.

Educationally, the L-word is dangerous. Administrations encourage admiration and respect, but love is conspicuously absent. Understandable. Inappropriate teacher student relationships make national news and destroy lives. Elementary teachers can hug students, but by middle school it is to be a touchless relationship. I disagree.

Sometimes an appropriate touch, handshake, high five, tap on the shoulder or even a hug – can be powerfully effective in mentoring, consoling or encouraging. It doesn’t have to be physical. It can be listening and responding when others won’t.

C.S. Lewis in his book, The Four Loves, divides the Greek vocabulary for “love” into four categories:  Storge (στοργή storgē) -affection, Philia (Philia (φιλία philía) – friendship, Éros (ἔρως érōs) – romantic love, and Agápe (ἀγάπη agápē) – charity.

None of those match completely what I’m trying to define. Storge (affection) can include the physical. Philia (i.e. Philadelphia – brotherly love) comes close but can include the sexual. Éros is obviously not appropriate, and Agápe, often interpreted as the love between Christians is also close, but gets into spiritual and that is not quite it either.

I “L” my students with a parental type. I see their potential and their youthful enthusiasm and I love that. I love their willingness to share with me things that they can’t comfortably share anywhere else.

“You are always the one to trust with issues like this because you treat us like people and not just another bunch of “teenagers”.”

I ADMIRE students who…

  • pay band fees out of a paycheck
  • pay for private instruction lessons out-of-pocket
  • seem completely self-supporting (clothes, obligations)
  • apologize for the way their parent(s) behaved
  • juggle the extra rehearsals and activities with job and homework — and go for the best grades without parental encouragement or expectation
  • keep a positive attitude when others have parents involved and but they don’t

Nobody said life is fair. Those who endure hardships can be the better for it later. Trust me on that. As the oldest of five children raised in a single parent family by a polio surviving mother (and if you have no idea what that means, thank God), I understand poverty, but also how to work through it, with it, around it, and above it …. so cut me some slack when I don’t expect less from the less fortunate.

Students often impress me with friend choices and for the way they support and encourage each other. It is moving to see how friends and band members surround one who is hurting, physically or emotionally. With proper relationships established, teachers can be included in, or involved separately in similar support and encouragement – even of some personal issues.

I RESPECT students …

  • who work through moderate pain or discomfort without complaint
  • who have the musical ability to thrive, but can’t get the new instrument, or the private lessons, or go to the summer camps….or even stay in band, because of a parent who doesn’t see the value of band or color guard
  • expect more of themselves than their parents do
  • endure custody battles and try not to allow it to interfere with band

I hope these students appreciate how hard I try to make their situations work out.

And we have students whose parents are their biggest cheerleaders and amazing supporters…..

  • helping them earn the highest of Boy or Girl Scout honors
  • supporting their garage band
  • encouraging out of country mission trips
  • inspiring them to pursue the same vocation as the parent
  • or spending countless hours volunteering for band (committees, sewing, cooking, feeding, chaperoning, driving, etc)

We have CARING students who….

  • stand outside Wal-mart when it is below freezing to ring bells and play Salvation Army brass ensemble music
  • volunteer in nursing homes and with church youth groups in a host of different types of volunteerism
  • help raise money for those sick and injured

I am a retired high school teacher who appropriately loves, admires, and respects students.

Teacher Student Love

 

Is it ever ok for a teacher to LOVE students? Read More »

My College Years with an Old Opera Singer

7 Comments / Personal experience, Repost, Respect /

By John Gardner

This house and owner involved three years of my college life living in a home owned by a 1920’s New York opera singer.

Not quite haunted, my college apartment was a hospital room during the Civil War. This was my college home for three years while attending the University of Kentucky. Only a two-minute walk from the music building made it convenient and the rent was cheap but came with a price. Miss Iva Dagley, a 70-yr old former opera singer, rented five third floor rooms to college guys. Both the house and the homeowner were historic and unique. The straight parallel rows of huge trees that go out for several blocks from the house likely outlined the original entrance to the 1800’s estate. Miss Dagley (no one called her Iva) was a rising opera singer when the 1930’s Great Depression sent her home from the New York’s Metropolitan Opera.  She never talked about her life overseas or in New York, or how she acquired her wealth, but aside from the value (historic and monetary) of the house itself, the contents were priceless. I’m not surprised that she never married.

Life at the Dagley house included an education UK could not match. She adjusted forever my dialect, diction, grammar and vocabulary.  I uncomfortably experienced how the élite deal with the ordinary, picked up breadcrumbs of how the rich keep, manage and spend money and cringed at her political prejudice and unapologetic racism.

Miss Dagley was legally blind and her cat was deaf…. which made for a hilarious combination. She couldn’t see the cat and it couldn’t hear her coming. From the 3rd floor, we would periodically hear the cat scream, often followed by a crashing pot or pan. When I ran down to check on her after one especially noisy event, she scolded me to never do that again.

Rent was cheap but included one “errand” per month. Since there were five of us, that meant she could get out at least that often, or to get things done in or around the house. Sometimes our errand was to give a tour of the house to her guests. In my three years there I did a lot with and for Miss Dagley. I’ve highlighted a few of the more memorable.

“1791” Tapestry in a stairwell. When showing some guests a thick tapestry…and noticing “1791” stitched into the lower right corner, I later asked her if it was a copy. Her blunt response,

“Young man, please don’t ever again suggest that I have a ‘copy’ of anything in this house.”

Traveling with Miss Dagley was a trip. We drove her in a 20-year-old Cadillac. Faded pink, it must have been especially rare and attention-grabbing in the 50’s. It was in mint condition as it was only outside the garage a few miles per month. Picture, as you read the following ordeals, how the other person involved would give her assistant a “is she for real?” look that they knew she could not see.

The bank. “She wanted to “cash” a check. She didn’t specify why….just handed me a money bag and an envelope for the teller. Imagine…. a college student approaching a bank teller with a nearly blind senior citizen woman, and handing the teller an envelope containing a check, a note to “cash it” with specific instructions of how many of each denomination – and a money bag. I was unaware of the amount of the check until the teller summoned security, which quickly, but politely, positioned around us. Can you say awkward moment? The exchange with the teller went something like this:

Teller: “Ma’am, are you sure you want to cash this….all of this?”

Dagley: “What does the note say?”

Teller: “Yes ma’am, but are you aware of the amount you are asking for?”

Dagley: “You mean the amount for which I am asking? (She was always correcting grammar and pronunciation). Is there confusion about the amount?”

I was not surprised that they were questioning her writing, especially if she wrote it out herself. More probable is that her attorney, a frequent visitor, wrote the check, and that her signature was all over it. When signing things, she would ask us to place the pen in the general area. Her signature was huge and never went in the intended direction.

Teller: Are you sure you have the right number of zeros?

Dagley: How many zeros do you see?

Teller: Ma’am that is ten thousand dollars.

Dagley: “Yes, it is. It is in my account and I want you to put it in this bag.”

Bank officer w/Security: “Miss Dagley, may we have a word with you?”

Dagley: “No. You may not. This is a simple transaction and I want you to complete it NOW.”

I never knew what she did with that $10,000 in cash.

The fireplace store.“She wanted an insert for one of her massive fireplaces (note the chimneys on the house). She was using her long-sleeved white gloves to feel shapes and textures. The biggest difference between her white glove inspection and that of a Marine sergeant was she was unarmed.

Me: “Miss Dagley, those stoves are dirty.” (Ignores me.)

Salesman: “Ma’am, you are getting your white gloves dirty.”

Dagley: “Why am I getting my white gloves dirty?”

Salesman: “These are sample stoves in active fireplaces and they have soot on them.”

Dagley: “Why are you displaying dirty stoves? Show me a clean one, please.”

At the gas station. (full service, of course.)

Dagley: “What are you putting on my windshield?”

Attendant: “Window cleaner, ma’am.”

Dagley: “Soap and water. That is all I want you putting on my car.”

Sending Christmas Cards. She kept a book and tracked incoming and outgoing cards.

Me: “Here’s a card from [whoever]. Shall I address one to them?”

Dagley: “Did they send me a card last year?”

Me: “Yes ma’am.”

Dagley: “What about two years ago?”

Me: “Doesn’t look like it.”

Dagley: “Then we shall wait until next year. Next?”

Some of the rooms in her house.

Hopefully, someday I will find the pictures I took.

The SILVER Room.“Probably originally a dining room, this room had a remarkable collection of only silver artifacts. It was a large room with layers of added shelves. Badly tarnished silver (I’m confident it wouldn’t have been if she could have seen it, but it was not wise to criticize anything in the house. My mother commented,

It would take a full-time person just to keep this room shiny.

The TEAKWOOD Room. Every piece of furniture was hand-carved under water. The room had a very oriental look to it, with marble serpent eyes in the arms of some of the chairs.

The centerpiece of the SUN room was a massive marble table. The tabletop was no fewer than three inches thick and, according to Miss Dagley, took seven men to carry in. Nothing sat on it. No one ever used it. It was just…..there.

The Living Room, and all the rooms on the first floor had approximately 20 ft ceilings and hardwood floors covered with ornamental not quite wall to wall rugs. The rug in the living room had to be 60-80 ft long and over 20 ft wide. I would never be able to afford even the frames that surrounded the massive paintings and portraits. She was stunning in her twenties during the twenties. The 4-foot urns looked like she picked them up in India. At the back of the room (went from front to back of the house) was a full-size grand piano (not a baby grand). On very rare occasions, when she thought we were all out of the house, she would vocalize. Given her age, I can only imagine the power and beauty of such a voice 50 years earlier. She gave a very small number of private voice lessons. I wish I could have sat in on some of those.

The Second Floor had four large, ornate bedrooms, each opening to a common foyer that provided several chairs and couches that I never saw used. Sometimes she would have an extended-staying guest in one of the other 2nd floor rooms.

The Third Floor had five rooms. Four rooms had windows that faced the side or the back, and those had normal, although old widows in them. The room that faced the front had only one small ornamental original window that couldn’t be changed because of the historical registry. There was an electric bell installed that Miss Dagley would use if she needed to “call” one of us, or if she needed to give us notice that she was “coming up”.

Diction and Dialect

Singers must carefully and correctly pronounce their words. So did people in Miss Dagley’s presence. I once asked if she wanted me to wash (pronounced worsch) the car. She kept asking me what I wanted to do to her car until I figured out her point. Another time, I mentioned something on the “nooze“. She asked me how to spell that and when I responded n-e-w-s, she encouraged me to pronounce what I spelled. During my three years in her house, she thoroughly negated my northern Kentucky accent.

Racism and Communism

There was an African-American man who took care of her yard. His transactions with her were always from the back door (which I saw only one time when I walked around the outside of the house), never the front. One time I called her on a reference to him and she silenced me with,

I have nothing against colored people…..they’re just not as smart as normal people.

Another shocker was when I had said something about how I liked the way John Kennedy spoke:

Democrats are communists and he was one of the worst.

Curfew, Girls and the Girl Apartment

We all had a key to her massive front door. But each night, once she believed we were all inside, she would apply the additional locks. I don’t recall a time-specific curfew, but we all knew she waited for us to get in before she would go to bed, which made midnight practicing at the music building problematic. She told us that we were to call her if we ever got to the house and found the door locked. No one wanted to make that call.

One night I missed the locking, which meant having to walk to campus to find a pre-cellular-phone. Instead, I elected to use the fire escape, which required the first ladder to get to the metal roof right outside her bedroom window and then climbing the second ladder to the window of my room. Unfortunately, I mistakenly thought I had the storm window locked open and when it slammed shut, the shattered glass made a terrible noise outside her window. I looked over the fire escape and saw her bedroom light come on. I climbed inside just in time to hear the bell ring and her call, “I’m coming up”. She never raised her voice, simply asking….

Why did you break my window?

Joan and I were dating by the time I moved into the house sophomore year. Miss Dagley liked Joan, especially since she was a vocal music major. Two of the five third floor guys would have girlfriends over. The other three didn’t want to put their friends through Miss Dagley’s unofficial approval process, which generally required only the first few conversation exchanges. Only the best for her boys, of course.

There was a studio apartment out the back of the house that was probably originally a summer kitchen or servant quarters. She would rent it to girls, but not to just one. She offered it to Joan, but when the second renter fell through, Miss Dagley helped her get a basement apartment down the street that provided extra income to a nice elderly couple. I spent more time in that basement than Joan spent in my attic.

Church and misc

Miss Dagley was Episcopalian. I never saw her church, although I would have loved to hear her sing. I learned two fun facts about this church. There were only six members (left). And because of her Packard story, I believe it was of a rural country variety. The reason she bought her Cadillac was because her previous car, a Packard, was so heavy that it once “sank” in her church parking lot.

I regret….

… that I never returned to visit. I learned of Miss Iva Dagley’s death from the lawyer’s response to my Christmas card. She had no family alive and the gossip, while we were there, was that it would all be left to her cat.

 

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