Chapter Fifty-Seven
The next Chapter of Lost and Found is posted below.
I sure do hope everyone had a great week. Mine was rather dull until we went with friends to see a community theater production of the play, “The Producers”. When I was in Vermont, I did a lot of community theater work, both as an actor and also doing work as a crew member — lighting, sound, set construction, etc. But, I need to tell you, I think the folks who put on “The Producers” here did an amazing job. This was professional quality community theater. Just fabulous. If any of you Dayton readers haven’t seen it, get your tickets. It’s worth it.
Be well — be in peace,
Ron Rink
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Not long after school was done for the summer, Miss Thomas informed me she would be having a few of her better students put on a recital. “How would you like to be one of my performers?” she asked.
My first reaction had been one of sheer panic. I knew Charlie was one of her students, but I’d never met any of her other students, nor had I ever heard any of them play. The part of me always needing to be better than anyone else, took over. In all my many lesson sessions with Miss Thomas, her criticisms were never about poor playing, but were rather about how to improve on something already good. A second, simultaneous reaction had leaped into my mind as I recalled the day at school when I played the Chopin Polonaise. The feelings of elation I had that day came back to me in a rush. I loved the feeling. I loved the applause. I loved seeing the tears of the teacher. I loved the looks of the giggling girls in the hallways and on my front porch when I practiced. The two reactions then blended into a conclusion that if Miss Thomas thought I was good enough to take part in the recital, then perhaps I was.
“I guess I would,” I answered. “What would I play?”
“I thought it would be good for you to play the Polonaise, since you have it sounding so good now, and perhaps the E flat Chopin Nocturne. You almost have the first movement of the Beethoven Sonata learned, so we might be able to have it ready as well. The recital won’t be for a couple of months.”
My concerns about the other students took over again. “How many of us will be in the recital?” I asked with trepidation in my voice.
“I think I’ll have only three of you this time,” she answered with a knowing smile on her face. “Are you worried about something?”
The last thing I would ever have wanted Miss Thomas to think was that I could ever be less than perfect. There were two areas of my life where I felt a need to prove I was worthy. The gang was one, and being worthy of Miss Thomas’ approval was another. I answered accordingly, “No. I was just wondering is all.”
“Good. Then we’ll devote our lessons, and your practice time, to those three pieces. We have time yet, so we should be able to have them ready to go.”
During the early part of that summer, I made a decision not to try to run away. I didn’t want to be living on the streets because I didn’t want to lose the practice time for the recital. I loved the three pieces we were working on, and I was feeling more confident about playing them to perfection. When I would run away, I’d either sneak into the Intermediate school and use one of their pianos in the afternoons, or practice at a friend’s house. I didn’t pack music when I ran away, so the only things I could practice were pieces I’d completely memorized.
There was one time, the summer before when I was on the streets, when Miss Thomas had asked me some hard questions. When I wasn’t living at home, I would always manage to get to someone’s house to take a bath and put on clean clothes before a piano lesson. On this particular occasion, however, I hadn’t been able to. I’d been working at the racetrack, sleeping part of the time on some hay bales, part of the time under porches or in the back seats of cars in garages, and the rest of the time on the floor in the bowling alley. I’d managed to use the bathroom at the Sugar Bowl to wash my face and hands, but I still smelled like a stable and my clothes were filthy. I didn’t want to miss the lesson so I went anyway. I knew how dirty I was because the people on the bus had given me strange looks.
When I walked into the door of Miss Thomas’ studio, she looked up quickly from her desk, smiled, and then looked at me again with an expression of shock and surprise on her face. Her smile faded and she said, “Roland, are you alright?”
The skin on my face turned hot from the blush that bloomed as my embarrassment rose. “Yes ma’am,” I answered in a tight whisper.
“Roland, your clothes are filthy and from the smell of you I would bet you haven’t had a bath in quite some time. What is going on? You need to tell me why you’ve come to your lesson like this.” Her voice was stern and forceful. It was the first time Miss Thomas had ever raised her voice to me. The urge to cry was overwhelming. The tears had begun to well up in my eyes. I could feel my throat closing as I choked back a sob. Miss Thomas was probably the only person in the world whose anger I couldn’t bear.
I swallowed back the tears as my mind searched for an answer to her question. I didn’t want her to know I’d run away from home. I knew if she was aware of it she would have to call my mother and I’d be back home again in no time. I felt as though I had to go to the bathroom as I stood there with my eyes down and my hands stuffed into the pockets of my overalls.
I blurted out the first thing that came to my mind. “I went with some friends to the racetrack this morning, and we were fooling around in the stables and I got dirty. I stayed too long and I didn’t have time to go home before my lesson.”
Miss Thomas looked at me as though she was trying to make up her mind whether or not to believe me. I could feel myself withering under her gaze. Finally she stood up, put her hands on her hips and said, “Well, I can’t let you sit on my furniture with such filthy clothes, and I certainly can’t see how either one of us could concentrate on a piano lesson with you being so dirty. You’ll have to go home now. And Roland, don’t ever come to a lesson like this again, do you understand?”
I squirmed in my devastation. To lose the respect of this woman was more than I could bear. I couldn’t manage to speak or look at her, so I just nodded my head and turned to go.
Just as I was reaching out to open the door, she spoke in her normal, quiet voice, “I will see you here next week, Roland, and if you ever need someone to talk to about anything, you can always talk with me, you know.”
“Yes, Ma’am,” I whispered as I went out the door and around the corner of the studio.
I didn’t start to cry until I reached the street.
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http://www.buddhistbelief.com
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