I don't know anyone who started out life without a dream. We all dream of doing great and wonderful things in our lives. My youngest son dreamed of being a medical doctor and thankfully his dream came true. My oldest son dreamed of being an English teacher and thankfully he became a CPA. Debbie dreamed of being a wife and mother and thankfully for the boys and me, her dream came true. In my earliest years I dreamed of being a singing cowboy and thankfully for everyone concerned, I became a business manager instead. Some you win....some you lose.
Although my dream was very real and obtainable, I was still wearing shorts with my cowboy boots and roaming the streets of River Oaks when it became apparent I would never be a cowboy and I most assuredly would never sing and play the guitar. Oh sure, I could sing. As long as you wanted to hear the ballad of Dave Crockett I was your man. If you wanted to hear someone play the guitar I was not the guy to do it. I tried and I tried but the ability to play this beautiful instrument escaped me. I gave up music for a planned career in the major leagues.
I played, watched, studied, and dreamed about baseball. I slept with my ball glove wrapped in my arms. I loved it but it didn't take too many years of strikeouts and missed grounders for me to realize the major leagues weren't in my future. What to do? What to do?
My dreams became less a plan for the future and more a fantasy of what could have been....only eleven years old and already telling myself, "I coulda been a contender!". My sister Cindy was going into seventh grade which was then the first year of junior high. She signed up for band over PE or any other activity. I thought, "Poor old Cindy. She has to be in the band. Poor, poor Cindy." I told her how sorry I was about the whole thing and she stung me with these words: "Daddy said I had to be in the band and he said ALL of his kids would be in the band because we needed to learn to read and play music." I was shocked! But, at least I now had a new dream. Even if I couldn't carry a tune in a bucket and I could never master the guitar, at least I would be making music. AND, I knew exactly what I was going to play!
About this time we moved to Roswell, New Mexico and I started junior high out there. Per parental instruction, I reported to the band hall during registration to begin my musical career. I took the aptitude test and amazingly scored "higher than anyone had ever scored" according to the band director. He was so proud of me. He told me I could play any musical instrument I wanted! I knew exactly how to answer. "I want to play the drums!" His answer was quick and to the point. "We already have enough drummers. You're going to play the cornet." Standing up for my rights as a musical genius I answered right back, "Yes sir! What's a cornet sir?"
Over the next few days I found out a cornet was the lesser known, and lesser loved cousin to the trumpet. I asked the director if I could play the trumpet instead because I at least knew what it looked like. He said "sure" but when he wrote out the note to my parents he said "cornet or trumpet, your choice". That cinched it for me. The cornet was cheaper than the trumpet so my musical career was determined by the few dollars difference.
I have to admit I was pretty proud when my dad brought that cornet home. It was new and shiny and I quickly became attached to it. No, I didn't sleep with it wrapped in my arms but I was kind of attached. I took it to school that first day and didn't even get to take it out of the case. The director thought we should learn how to read music before learning to play our instruments. YAWN!!
Finally the day came when he told us to open our cases and warm up our instruments. I assumed correctly that meant we should blow into them. Some of the kids rubbed theirs.....idiots. That first blow into my cornet was less than memorable. All that came out was air. That sly old dog hadn't told us how to actually make sounds with our instruments and sat on his stool smiling like he was so darn smart. Then he tapped his little baton on his stand and started going through each section of instruments. When he got to the cornets he told us to remove our mouthpieces and make sounds like a duck. He had to be kidding but we were kids. A grownup says to sound like a duck and by golly we're going to sound like ducks. After a second or two us musical geniuses figured out we had to buzz our lips to sound duck-like. Soon the whole section was quacking off. He then told us to put the mouthpieces back on our horns and repeat the process. Oh my goodness, I've never heard anything worse than ten novice cornet players tooting out various notes for the first time. We had a lot of work to do.
Keep in mind I was still playing baseball and reluctant to give up my dream. However, playing a musical instrument required a lot of practice so I didn't get to go out to play ball as often as I wished. I practiced and practiced...sometimes for seconds at a time until the band director told me I better start learning to play that cornet or he was going to do something terrible like switching me to a reed instrument. What in the world? Where did he come up with this stuff? Anyway, he scared me with the threat and I found myself spending an hour a day after school blowing noises out of that cornet for all I was worth. After a while I noticed the noise had become notes. Instead of air I was playing clear notes...not always in key but definitely clear notes. This inspired me to play louder and louder as I learned scales and technique. I also regularly entertained the neighbors with little whimsies like "Mary Had A Little Lamb" and "Pop Goes The Weasel".
One Saturday afternoon while the family was outside enjoying life, I was in my room going through my repertoire. Suddenly my bedroom door flew open and my dad, with an uncomfortable crazed look in his eye, scanned the room, grabbed a sock laying on the floor, and shoved it right up the bell of my shiny cornet. From that day on my practice included the use of a sweat sock.
I admit I was a terrible cornet player but I loved every minute of it. Being in the band throughout junior high and high school gave me some of the best memories I have. A recent fifty year reunion brought a small group of band members together again. It was great to visit and recall former glory days. Some of the group still played their instruments and performed! I would have liked to have done that but it wasn't to be. One evening when my boys were still living at home we started talking about music. I mentioned I could play the cornet. The boys wanted to see it so I got it out of the back of the closet and tried to remember everything I had known. I went through a few scales, played a poor rendition of "The Lonely Bull" by Herb Alpert, and decided to wow them with my crowning accomplishment....the ability to hold high "C" for more than a minute without wavering in and out of tune. After a few stabs at getting all the way up to high "C" I finally hit it. Five seconds into the demonstration my son Cody walked up, gently took the horn from me and said, "Dad, I'm sorry but you look like you are about to have a heart attack. Don't do this ever again." Such was the end of my musical career. The cornet is now an ornament on one of Cody's bookshelves.
Don't feel sad for me though. They will have to pry my banjo out of my cold, dead fingers.
