The following was written by my late wife Elaine. She wrote a long book, a diary really, from which this is one passage:
More on Teaching
Soon after Dave’s KEYBOARD sign appeared, a young man wearing a black leather jacket rode up on his motorcycle to inquire about buying a month’s worth of piano lessons for his wife for Mother’s Day. She had a two-octave electric organ for her practicing (about the size of a toy piano), and he said that if she liked studying music, he would buy her a piano.
The month’s lessons progressed very well, and he went piano-shopping without his wife and ended up buying her an electronic organ instead of a piano, and she was happy to have her own instrument and praised her husband’s thoughtfulness. I think of this husband’s gift as a beautiful love story.
Near the end of the last year we lived in Warrenton (1977), I had a large recital and I kept all the letters from students and parents when it was known that we were going to move. We moved the KEYBOARD sign with us to Union to the front of the studio for the years I taught there. It was only egged on one Halloween!
About teaching:
A tutor who tooted a flute tried to teach two young tutors to toot. Said the two to the tutor: ‘Is it harder to toot, or to tutor two tutors to toot?’
– Anonymous
If I had written that, I think I’d have remained anonymous, too.
In 1982 I joined the Alderson, West Virginia Music Club which met monthly at members’ homes. We had a fun time playing music for each other, and enjoyed refreshments and good conversation with kindred souls. I made new friends in this group, and enjoyed every meeting until “the day the music died” a few years later. (That phrase came from a popular song of the sixties, I think.)
In Union, I’ve played electronic organs or pump organs (the nearest pipe organs are all in Lewisburg), and pianos in different churches for services; Baptist, Methodist, and Episcopal. The words and melodies of hymns have always been important and interesting to me. Poetry has been a lifelong pleasure for me, and of course hymn verses are poetry!
I collect hymnbooks, and I love them all. A large, hard-cover, shaped note hymnbook called Original Sacred Harp recalls wonderful evenings at John Shortridge’s in Aldie, Virginia. A harpsichord builder where friends often gathered to sing four-part hymns from these books, a cappella.
I got a paperback Catholic hymnbook, Today’s Missal: Music Issue 1982, when we visited a historic church out west; a stack of the hymnbooks was on a pew with an invitation for visitors to take one, and a box was available for donations. I was particularly interested in one of its hymns, unknown to me at the time, Lord of the Dance (1963) and found it recently (2001) in one of the newest church hymnals being used in Union.
Poetry is the expression of earnest thought; singing is the prolonged utterance of that expression.
– Attributed to Chinese Emperor.
To be continued…
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About the Author: RD Blakeslee (1931 – 2024) built his net worth by only investing in that which can be enjoyed during acquisition and throughout life, as opposed to papers in a drawer, like stocks and bonds. You can read more about him here.
Photos: Courtesy of the Blakeslee Family
The post Grandfather Says: The Continuing Chronicles of Elaine, Part 76 appeared first on Len Penzo dot Com.