One summer when I was in junior high I started playing bassoon with my cousin Pam and her cousin Miki (Marlyss) who took up French Horn. Miki did a lot of things with us and since her father was Pam’s mother’s brother we hung around as relatives even though we weren’t really related. Miki gave up French Horn shortly after that summer so she could get busy taking advance placement classes. Pam and I continued with the bassoon through most of high school. I was two years ahead of Pam in school, so after that first summer we were always in different band classes.
I don’t remember if the band learned enough that first summer to be in the marching band, but the next summer we did. Bassoons are not included in a marching band so I was always given something else to play. The next summer Mr. Faulkner, our band teacher from Meeker Junior High, set me up with a glockenspiel. This is a heavy kind of shiny silver instrument that looked like a liar with strips of metal looking similar to a piano that you struck with a mallet. I guess there was some kind of leather contraption that put over your head that had a place to support the instrument while you marched in the band. I doubt if there was any concern for which hand I usually used. The teacher probably put the mallet in my right hand as that is the way the instrument was loaded into the strap so you support it with your left hand and play it with your right. I’m left handed. I don’t think this instrument was too hard to play as all you did was play the melody line one note at a time. I’m sure if I hit the wrong note everyone knew it as this instrument really stood out with it’s high pitched sound when the band played.
Mr. Faulkner marched us in every local parade from here to Timbuktu. The junior high band kids wore white shirts, black pants and black Keds. One summer we marched so much that I worn out the front toes of my new pair of Keds clear through to the toes. My mom was concerned that these shoes were defective and we tried to get Jones’, the local sports store, to replace them as defective. I think they were kind of expensive for the time and Mom wanted to control her limited budget and get the best value. Well, the clerk at Jones’ just looked at us like we were crazy when she heard I was in the marching band. I must have gotten a new pair that day for which my Mom had to pay regular price.
We were in the Greeley 4th of July parade and another one in Estes Park. We must have played for the rodeo as I remember seeing the Greeley rodeo at Island Grove Park with all my band chums.
By the time school started, we were the band that supported the football players at the games. Mr. Faulkner had switched me over to an old silver soprano saxophone he found some place. He was probably tired of hearing that ting – ting – ting of the glockenspiel. I didn’t play with the regular saxophone players as the soprano had different notes similar to the clarinets. I remember I had a lot of fun at the football games talking and laughing with my co-band members.
One time we were leaving and Mr. Faulkner stopped me as I was coming down the bleachers. He said, “Did you forget something?”
I didn’t know what he was talking about until he pointed to the saxophone resting on the bleacher seat where I had been sitting. I guess that saxophone and I didn’t really bond too well.
The next season the teacher moved me to cymbals. They were big old things that at times you had to hold to swish quietly together in time with the drum beats. When you played them, there was a certain way you held them to really get a nice clear crashing sound. I liked playing the cymbals as I always got to line up with the boys who played drums. There were always a lot of shenanigans going on in the drum row. Those guys are probably in Leavenworth now.
During the regular school band classes and for performances I played bassoon. I was mostly 2nd chair of 2 or 3 people. It was fun and I had no plans to be a concert bassoonist so that worked out Okay. We sat right behind the clarinets, next to the oboes in front of the trumpet rows. The trumpet players were always the cute hard to talk to guys. They didn’t want anything to do with the bassoonist that sat in front of them. I always thought that trumpet players must be good kissers as they had to hold their lips so tight when they player their instrument.
By the time I went to high school I started in the intermediate band and then moved up to the advanced concert band, still with a lot of the same kids. You really get to be best friends when you sit by the same kids year after year. I joined the orchestra too and got to know a whole different group of kids playing violins, cellos and bass. We had the opportunity to perform at the annual school musicals. The first year I was singing on stage with a group of girls in South Pacific. Next year I was in the orchestra when we did Oklahoma. Another year we did Brigadoon. My mom was so great. She went to all those performances and sat through them to support me in my activities.
In the high school marching band things were a lot stricter. We practiced every morning; rain, shine or snow. We were out there on the football field to work through the various patterns that our teacher had developed. We had to step so many steps between each ten yard line in perfectly straight lines. No goofing off with this guy, whose name escapes me. He must have had a big budget for band as he had several of us playing cymbals. He bought these smaller sized cymbals with leather straps that we learned to flip and turn to the beat along with crashing together the whole lot of us in perfect time.
By the time Thanksgiving came along we were ready as the Greeley High School band had been invited to present the half time show at the Bronco game at Mile High Stadium. We had new dark black uniforms with those silly hats with big white feathery plums. We were great at this half time performance. All that early morning practice really paid off. They took us to the Continental Denver, which at the time was a pretty nice hotel restaurant at the corner of Speer Boulevard and Zuni Street. They had starched white table clothes and shiny plates loaded up with Thanksgiving dinner. It still can’t compare to a real Thanksgiving with your family.
Friday, October 30, 2009
Wednesday, October 28, 2009
Halloween
Fall was always a pleasant time on the farm. The crops were mostly out of the fields except maybe for digging up the sugar beets. The weather was still fairly warm with chilly evenings and cooler daytime temperatures. Colorado didn’t have much in the way of color of autumn leaves so we didn’t make much a big deal about it like they do back east in New England with the deep rusty, red and dark oranges colors. We had the gold of Aspen trees in the fall in the mountains against the dark green of the evergreens. When I was a kid our family didn't go out of our way to go to look at the Aspen leaves. I didn’t experience that splash of color of the mountain Aspen until I was married. We would take weekend rides up through Boreas Pass by Breckenridge and see the canopy of bright yellow gold over the mountain roads.
Children were back to school and settling into the drills and tattered school books passed down from children who used them the year before. Mostly little girls wore dresses of calico and gingham. The boys wore jeans or coveralls and plaid cotton or flannel shirts. The jeans were just plain old jeans. Nothing designer or special about these jeans. They might have been Levis or Wranglers, but the brands didn’t mean much at that time. They were just jeans that boys wore to school and to help with the chores around the farm.
Once a year we celebrated Halloween. On that day most everyone came to school in a costume. We had assigned desks so you could guess who the kids were even though they were dressed head-to-toe in odd costumes. One year I remember one of the Howard boys – probably Joe – changed seats with a couple of his 8th grade classmates to fool us younger kids in 5th grade. Joe and his friends had concocted homemade Halloween costumes that covered them so well we couldn't guess who they were. Joe in particular had put on his Mom’s clothes stuffed socks for the boobs and added one of those flowered scarves on his head that he tied with a knot at his forehead. I think I went all day and I never did figure out who he was. I was pretty naive about that kind of stuff. We all made our costumes out of things we found at home. Scarecrows had real straw coming out of coveralls and witches were wrapped in black cloth with homemade pointed witch hats.
One year the Goldsmiths put on a haunted house in their basement. I was probably ten or so at the time. Even though I tried to find out from my friend Lois what her brother Bob was up to with the haunted house I never did find out the gory details until we actually went through the basement. It was dark and scary as we walked down the stairs. The staircase was open so as you walked someone grabbed at your ankles from behind to put your emotions through the wringer. Sheets were put up in a maze. You followed a dark path feeling eyeballs (peeled grapes), brains (cooked spaghetti) and other such concoctions that scared young children. Black cats ran across our path screeching and swishing their tails at our legs. They played a record on their turn table that had eerie sounds along with their own sounds effects of screening and pretend murders taking place.
Once we were sufficiently scared from the basement offerings we went back upstairs for some games. These were the days when you actually dunked your head in a tub of water to retrieve an apple. Harder than it sounds. Apples were also strung on a string from the garage ceiling that you had to grab a healthy bite. The best way was to partner with someone so the apple would stay still. There were popcorn balls made with fresh candied syrup and hot cider to warm your spirits.
Stan and I have tried for recreate that type of Halloween atmosphere with our kids over the years but nothing comes close to the Goldsmith party. Our kids mostly went trick or treating and brought home bags of candy that we checked to make sure no one had slipped in any razor blades in the apples and that all candy was wrapped in its original wrapper. This is a crazy tradition to send your kids out in their costumes to beg for candy on a chilly night. They always had more candy then an army could eat. It made them both just on one big sugar high for weeks while they ate through their stash.
The schools let our little kids dress in Halloween costumes (purchased of course) and served cupcakes or decorated cookies made by some of the mothers. Stober Elementary School had pumpkin decorating contests while John was going there. He won one year with a tall skinny pumpkin that we painted like a clown with a hat and a pom-pom on top. Another year he found a really small pumpkin that he decorated and won the smallest pumpkin contest. At the time little pumpkins were hard to find. Today you can find baskets of them at any local grocery.
We always tried to carve a pumpkin or two when I grew up and then each year as our kids grew up. They were just the ordinary Jack-o-Lantern with eyes, nose and mouth and a candle to light it all up. Now pumpkin carving has become a real art that includes scraping away the hard skin and sculpting interesting faces.
One year when Jamie was about three months old I found a really big pumpkin, cleaned it out and carved the face. I put her in it for a photo. Hope I can find that photo some day. Young mothers. We are kind of silly sometimes.
Children were back to school and settling into the drills and tattered school books passed down from children who used them the year before. Mostly little girls wore dresses of calico and gingham. The boys wore jeans or coveralls and plaid cotton or flannel shirts. The jeans were just plain old jeans. Nothing designer or special about these jeans. They might have been Levis or Wranglers, but the brands didn’t mean much at that time. They were just jeans that boys wore to school and to help with the chores around the farm.
Once a year we celebrated Halloween. On that day most everyone came to school in a costume. We had assigned desks so you could guess who the kids were even though they were dressed head-to-toe in odd costumes. One year I remember one of the Howard boys – probably Joe – changed seats with a couple of his 8th grade classmates to fool us younger kids in 5th grade. Joe and his friends had concocted homemade Halloween costumes that covered them so well we couldn't guess who they were. Joe in particular had put on his Mom’s clothes stuffed socks for the boobs and added one of those flowered scarves on his head that he tied with a knot at his forehead. I think I went all day and I never did figure out who he was. I was pretty naive about that kind of stuff. We all made our costumes out of things we found at home. Scarecrows had real straw coming out of coveralls and witches were wrapped in black cloth with homemade pointed witch hats.
One year the Goldsmiths put on a haunted house in their basement. I was probably ten or so at the time. Even though I tried to find out from my friend Lois what her brother Bob was up to with the haunted house I never did find out the gory details until we actually went through the basement. It was dark and scary as we walked down the stairs. The staircase was open so as you walked someone grabbed at your ankles from behind to put your emotions through the wringer. Sheets were put up in a maze. You followed a dark path feeling eyeballs (peeled grapes), brains (cooked spaghetti) and other such concoctions that scared young children. Black cats ran across our path screeching and swishing their tails at our legs. They played a record on their turn table that had eerie sounds along with their own sounds effects of screening and pretend murders taking place.
Once we were sufficiently scared from the basement offerings we went back upstairs for some games. These were the days when you actually dunked your head in a tub of water to retrieve an apple. Harder than it sounds. Apples were also strung on a string from the garage ceiling that you had to grab a healthy bite. The best way was to partner with someone so the apple would stay still. There were popcorn balls made with fresh candied syrup and hot cider to warm your spirits.
Stan and I have tried for recreate that type of Halloween atmosphere with our kids over the years but nothing comes close to the Goldsmith party. Our kids mostly went trick or treating and brought home bags of candy that we checked to make sure no one had slipped in any razor blades in the apples and that all candy was wrapped in its original wrapper. This is a crazy tradition to send your kids out in their costumes to beg for candy on a chilly night. They always had more candy then an army could eat. It made them both just on one big sugar high for weeks while they ate through their stash.
The schools let our little kids dress in Halloween costumes (purchased of course) and served cupcakes or decorated cookies made by some of the mothers. Stober Elementary School had pumpkin decorating contests while John was going there. He won one year with a tall skinny pumpkin that we painted like a clown with a hat and a pom-pom on top. Another year he found a really small pumpkin that he decorated and won the smallest pumpkin contest. At the time little pumpkins were hard to find. Today you can find baskets of them at any local grocery.
We always tried to carve a pumpkin or two when I grew up and then each year as our kids grew up. They were just the ordinary Jack-o-Lantern with eyes, nose and mouth and a candle to light it all up. Now pumpkin carving has become a real art that includes scraping away the hard skin and sculpting interesting faces.
One year when Jamie was about three months old I found a really big pumpkin, cleaned it out and carved the face. I put her in it for a photo. Hope I can find that photo some day. Young mothers. We are kind of silly sometimes.
Tuesday, October 27, 2009
School Dazes
Pleasant Valley was a country school with eight grades. One top floor room had first and second grade. The other big room had fifth, sixth, seventh and eighth grade. There was a big stage in the front of that room. The basement had third and forth grades.
Black chalk boards lined the big kids room. There were pieces of chalk and erasers in the trays at each board. The four grades had the same teacher, Mrs. Guthrie. She was a real old maid stickler. She always wore dresses and hose and carried herself in a maternally manner. As I remember, her hair was mousy grey and she rolled it up in some kind of roll of curls bobby pinned tightly around her head in a circle. She was nice enough and cared a lot about the kids learning something.
She would line us up at the chalk boards, one grade at a time, while the other grades worked on their homework quietly at their desks. She would give us math problems until our hands were fully of chalk. We would right down the problem, then she would say go and be would busily work through the answers. It was always a challenge to see who could finish first with the right answer. I don’t remember being first, but don’t remember being last either. No computers for us as they weren’t even invented yet. I must have learned something this Mrs. Guthrie as I was pretty good at math, algebra, calculus in later years.
Mrs. Guthrie loved to teach us geography. We learned through constant drilling and memorization all the states and capitols, countries and capital cities all over the world, mountain ranges, rivers, oceans, facts about continents, climates and longitude and latitude information. She filled our heads until they almost burst.
Science was kind a skimpy subject for Mrs. Guthrie. It would have been hard to imagine being an astronaut as it information about space travel was limited in the early 1950’s. When I was older and went with a school group on a train to Washington DC by way of Chicago we stopped at the Air and Science Museum. I was enamored with all the information and science displays that we saw. Of course, this was still a time when traveling to places by air was limited. Our family would go down to the Greeley airport just a few miles from our country home just to watch the small aircraft take off and land. What a treat. When traveling from the big Stapleton Airport in Denver, every one dress up in their Sunday best as it was a big deal to be flying in such an elegant way.
At the end of the day at school, Mrs. Guthrie would assign a couple of kids to pick up the erasers and go outside the back porch of the school and slap them together in a great cloud of chalk dust to clean them. It was an enjoyable chore to have a few minutes away from the school time drills.
Music was limited in this school. Once a week or so a traveling music teacher would come around and we would sing some songs. She would play the piano that was upfront in the room and we would sing along. I still can remember some of those simple, friendly songs. Some were patriotic and start something like this; My Country Tis of Thee, Oh Beautiful for Spacious Skies, Mine Eyes have Seen the Glory of the Coming of the Lord. Others were local favorite tunes such as Cielito Lindo, Carry me Back to Ole Virginny, My old Kentucky Home, Clementine and many rounds. Christmas songs came next. There was not much separation of church and state in the 1950’s.
The music teacher would split us up and teach us three or four part harmony. Rounds were always fun and would sound really great. My brother was really good at harmony and still today sings with a barbershop quarter.
Mrs. Guthrie drilled us on spelling words daily. She would line up all the four grades on the edge of the stage. Starting from the left side she would read a word. The student would repeat the word and spell it. If they were incorrect, she would go to the next person until someone could spell it right. That person would move up to where the word was misspelled. My friend Lois Goldsmith and I were always tied for last place. This practice set us up for the national spelling bee. I don’t think that any of Mrs. Guthrie’s’ students went to the spelling bee, but she did have her share of pretty smart kids.
I’m not a great speller as I really never learned phonics like some of the students and couldn’t hear the subtle differences of the words. Good thing there is spell check now with computers. My sister was a whiz at spelling and most other subjects as was my brother. It was hard to follow in their footsteps in the same school as the teacher has such high expectations of you that maybe you can’t live up to what your siblings did.
Art was a limited subject at Pleasant Valley mostly confined to drawing with a pencil on a piece of manila colored construction paper. We could use color crayons or cut out colored construction paper and glue it with mucilage to another piece of paper. One summer I went to town to school a College High, now Northern Colorado University. I guess my parents thought I should catch up. I was probably about second or third grade. I was so excited to find out that these kids had interesting art classes that used tempura paints to paint on newsprint. We would put on little smocks to keep out clothes clean and go to town with the paints. I would probably be more artsy today if I had more experience when I was in the country school.
At summer school there was an in door Olympic sized swimming pool. All the girls had to wear a swim cap. Mine was a rubber thing in light turquoise that had extra molded part at the top like a top knot. I tried to learn to swim as best I could, but really only progressed to the back stroke and face forward floating. I still can’t swim very well, but don’t really drown when I’m in the water.
An interesting experience during that summer has stuck with me. There were kids from all over the country taking summer school. Many were kids of parents who were teachers going to the College to update their teaching credentials. One of these kids was a little black kid. I had never really seen a black kid before. Most of the community was white folks or Hispanic folks. This kid mixed right in and did all the activities that that rest of us did with one exception. The first day of swim class he stood over to the side of the pool and wouldn’t come in the water. As he was one of our friends by now we all urged him to come in with us thinking he was afraid of the water. He still stood over to the side. The teacher worked with him for a while and discovered it wasn’t the water he was afraid of, but his background teachings. He was from the south and had learned at an early age that black didn’t swim in the same pool as whites. Though much coaxing and discussions with his parents he finally joined us the pool as this wasn’t the same issue in Colorado that it was in Alabama.
Black chalk boards lined the big kids room. There were pieces of chalk and erasers in the trays at each board. The four grades had the same teacher, Mrs. Guthrie. She was a real old maid stickler. She always wore dresses and hose and carried herself in a maternally manner. As I remember, her hair was mousy grey and she rolled it up in some kind of roll of curls bobby pinned tightly around her head in a circle. She was nice enough and cared a lot about the kids learning something.
She would line us up at the chalk boards, one grade at a time, while the other grades worked on their homework quietly at their desks. She would give us math problems until our hands were fully of chalk. We would right down the problem, then she would say go and be would busily work through the answers. It was always a challenge to see who could finish first with the right answer. I don’t remember being first, but don’t remember being last either. No computers for us as they weren’t even invented yet. I must have learned something this Mrs. Guthrie as I was pretty good at math, algebra, calculus in later years.
Mrs. Guthrie loved to teach us geography. We learned through constant drilling and memorization all the states and capitols, countries and capital cities all over the world, mountain ranges, rivers, oceans, facts about continents, climates and longitude and latitude information. She filled our heads until they almost burst.
Science was kind a skimpy subject for Mrs. Guthrie. It would have been hard to imagine being an astronaut as it information about space travel was limited in the early 1950’s. When I was older and went with a school group on a train to Washington DC by way of Chicago we stopped at the Air and Science Museum. I was enamored with all the information and science displays that we saw. Of course, this was still a time when traveling to places by air was limited. Our family would go down to the Greeley airport just a few miles from our country home just to watch the small aircraft take off and land. What a treat. When traveling from the big Stapleton Airport in Denver, every one dress up in their Sunday best as it was a big deal to be flying in such an elegant way.
At the end of the day at school, Mrs. Guthrie would assign a couple of kids to pick up the erasers and go outside the back porch of the school and slap them together in a great cloud of chalk dust to clean them. It was an enjoyable chore to have a few minutes away from the school time drills.
Music was limited in this school. Once a week or so a traveling music teacher would come around and we would sing some songs. She would play the piano that was upfront in the room and we would sing along. I still can remember some of those simple, friendly songs. Some were patriotic and start something like this; My Country Tis of Thee, Oh Beautiful for Spacious Skies, Mine Eyes have Seen the Glory of the Coming of the Lord. Others were local favorite tunes such as Cielito Lindo, Carry me Back to Ole Virginny, My old Kentucky Home, Clementine and many rounds. Christmas songs came next. There was not much separation of church and state in the 1950’s.
The music teacher would split us up and teach us three or four part harmony. Rounds were always fun and would sound really great. My brother was really good at harmony and still today sings with a barbershop quarter.
Mrs. Guthrie drilled us on spelling words daily. She would line up all the four grades on the edge of the stage. Starting from the left side she would read a word. The student would repeat the word and spell it. If they were incorrect, she would go to the next person until someone could spell it right. That person would move up to where the word was misspelled. My friend Lois Goldsmith and I were always tied for last place. This practice set us up for the national spelling bee. I don’t think that any of Mrs. Guthrie’s’ students went to the spelling bee, but she did have her share of pretty smart kids.
I’m not a great speller as I really never learned phonics like some of the students and couldn’t hear the subtle differences of the words. Good thing there is spell check now with computers. My sister was a whiz at spelling and most other subjects as was my brother. It was hard to follow in their footsteps in the same school as the teacher has such high expectations of you that maybe you can’t live up to what your siblings did.
Art was a limited subject at Pleasant Valley mostly confined to drawing with a pencil on a piece of manila colored construction paper. We could use color crayons or cut out colored construction paper and glue it with mucilage to another piece of paper. One summer I went to town to school a College High, now Northern Colorado University. I guess my parents thought I should catch up. I was probably about second or third grade. I was so excited to find out that these kids had interesting art classes that used tempura paints to paint on newsprint. We would put on little smocks to keep out clothes clean and go to town with the paints. I would probably be more artsy today if I had more experience when I was in the country school.
At summer school there was an in door Olympic sized swimming pool. All the girls had to wear a swim cap. Mine was a rubber thing in light turquoise that had extra molded part at the top like a top knot. I tried to learn to swim as best I could, but really only progressed to the back stroke and face forward floating. I still can’t swim very well, but don’t really drown when I’m in the water.
An interesting experience during that summer has stuck with me. There were kids from all over the country taking summer school. Many were kids of parents who were teachers going to the College to update their teaching credentials. One of these kids was a little black kid. I had never really seen a black kid before. Most of the community was white folks or Hispanic folks. This kid mixed right in and did all the activities that that rest of us did with one exception. The first day of swim class he stood over to the side of the pool and wouldn’t come in the water. As he was one of our friends by now we all urged him to come in with us thinking he was afraid of the water. He still stood over to the side. The teacher worked with him for a while and discovered it wasn’t the water he was afraid of, but his background teachings. He was from the south and had learned at an early age that black didn’t swim in the same pool as whites. Though much coaxing and discussions with his parents he finally joined us the pool as this wasn’t the same issue in Colorado that it was in Alabama.
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