Chapter Thirty-Nine

Here’s the next Chapter of Lost and Found.

The big event for me this past week was going to see the San Jose Taiko Drummers. They are on tour right now and did a performance in Dayton. I was a member of a Taiko Drumming Group when I lived in Vermont, so this was a real treat. My sensei in Vermont used to be a member of the San Jose group. What a show! I knew the San Jose group was one of the best performing groups in the country, and they showed just how great they are in this performance. Such precision! Such excellence! It was a real treat!

Okay, let’s do some reading.

Be well, be in peace,

Ron Rink
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As a member of the Dukes, I was rapidly discovering the multitude of protections available to me. In one instance, one of the guy’s parents got drunk and kicked him out of his house. One of the other guys had him over for supper the same night and another guy sneaked him into his house so he had a place to sleep.

Another time a couple of the gang members were attacked by a small group of older kids from another neighborhood. That same night, ten of us went to the neighborhood where those guys hung out and settled the score.

The good thing for me was how it was looking more realistic for me to find a way to live away from home and be reasonably safe.

Even though a good portion of my focus was on developing plans to leave home permanently, my musical life also continued to move forward. After Mrs. Wolpert stopped coming to give me lessons, I continued to practice every day while my mother kept looking for another teacher. The only book I had to work from was the one Mrs. Wolpert had given me before she left—the 52 Studies for the Piano book. I had taught myself several of the pieces in the book, managed to keep up with all my scales, plus the Hanon and Czerny exercises. I could tell I was continuing to improve, primarily because I knew I wasn’t just a little kid playing notes any longer. I was beginning to hear and feel the music in the pieces. Some of the newer pieces I learned were written in minor keys and I became more aware of the emotions I would feel as I played them. This was especially true with pieces which sounded sad or romantic.

One day later in the summer, my mother came into the living room where I was practicing. She stood near the opening to the dining room nervously wiping her hands on her apron. “I think I’ve found a teacher looking for piano students. Her name is Miss Thomas and according to Mrs. Saunders, she is one of the best piano teachers in the entire city of Detroit.”

My mother rarely had discussions with me and I could see how she was chafing with the unnaturalness of having an actual conversation with me.

“Is Charlie going to take lessons from her?” I asked.

“They don’t know yet, because Miss Thomas doesn’t take a new student unless they do an audition with her first.”

I watched as my mother’s face became blotchier while her hands kept nervously fussing with either her apron or her skirt.

“I just finished talking on the phone with Mrs. Saunders and Charlie is going to audition next week. Mrs. Saunders asked Miss Thomas if she would be willing to have another student audition in addition to Charlie. She said Miss Thomas wanted to know more about you before she would say yes or no, and asked me to call her directly. Would you like me to do that?”

She must have been exceptionally nervous because she never asks me first—she normally just tells me what she’s going to do.

It had been several months since Mrs. Wolpert stopped coming and when my mother asked that question, I suddenly realized I didn’t know how to answer her. I thought about how much I was enjoying my practices when I didn’t have to worry about whether my teacher would like what I did. The only person I truly had to please was myself. There wasn’t any pressure, and I liked that. However, as I looked at my mother and saw her anxiety, I began thinking about whether I would get in trouble if I said no. I realized I wasn’t going to be able to make up my mind for sure, so I just nodded my head and turned back to continue my practice. Before I turned away, I could see a brief smile form on my mother’s face as she turned to go back into the dining room. I could hear her dialing the phone as I started to play.

Later that same day my mother came into my room and said, “Miss Thomas will give you an audition.” She looked at a note in her hand. “She said you should learn the Prelude and Fugue Number 1 from Bach’s Well Tempered Clavichord. The audition will be next month. I’ll be going downtown tomorrow and I’ll go the music store and get the music so you can start practicing.”
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My other blog about Buddhism

http://www.buddhistbelief.com
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