Most of today is pretty much unblahggable. Not in a bad way though. It was a good day.

On facebook, a friend of my little brother announced his retirement from an esteemed career as a conductor of bands and orchestras, mainly in Florida. I should say he was a wonderful friend of mine too, although he and my brother were both three years younger than me. We were all talented musicians. Me a flutist, my brother a trombonist, and our friend, a percussionist. My brother and I didn’t pursue music as careers but our percussionist friend ended up with a PHD and a career as an acclaimed and beloved teacher and conductor.

We all got our start in music in Sault Ste. Siberia, a place where decent music teachers were few and far between. I had ONE decent flute teacher throughout my childhood there. I was in eighth grade and my flute teacher was married to an Air Force officer who spent a year at Kincheloe AFB (now defunct). They rented a small house across the Lincoln school yard from my family’s little bungalow. When The Commander found out about her, she immediately signed me up for lessons. Jan (the teacher) got what I was all about immediately and showered me with the kind of virtuoso music I craved and more. My family was not rich but The Commander willingly ordered whatever music Jan suggested for me and knowing The Comm, she probably paid Jan more than what she asked for. Among other things, Jan taught me how to flutter tongue. (Google it.) She was a kind, beautiful young woman and I LOVED her.

A few years later, my brother drove a VW Bug he took over from the family car collection when he went to college. I will never forget one night when he and our percussionist friend and a trumpet friend and meeeee, were driving up Ashmun Street across the bridge over the canal and playing Zoom Schwartz Profigliano. I don’t remember how to play that old game and not sure I could even play it competently then.

That’s meeee and my little brother on top of a big snowbank down by my grandparents’ house, eight blocks or so away from our house.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, December 3rd, 2025 at 9:43 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.