What Life-skill Learned in Childhood Do You Love?

Grade schoolers are malleable. In fourth grade, the music teach put anyone interested in band through an assessment to determine what instrument they should play. Most of the girls were told to play flute, while most of the boys were told to play trombone. Mr. Duck, the band director, said it was because of our lips, but, like a dark destiny you can’t escape, I think he could see it in our eyes.

A few kids showed spunk by declaring they wanted to play something else and convincing Mr. Duck they were worthy. I’m looking at Mark on coronet, Linda and Donna on clarinet, and Nick and Sam on drums.

In our house, my father made those decisions for us, relieving us of any spunk, or joy, in the process. I was told to tell Mr. Duck that it was clarinet or it was nothing.

My father was an accomplished accordion player. He’d started when he was eight and took lessons until he graduated high school. He played for as long as he could hold onto the damn thing and squeeze it.

He had this vague intention of starting a family polka band, born when my oldest brother went through the instrument selection process. My father insisted he play clarinet, and that lasted about three months before the tears and screaming ended my brother’s musical career, at least as for as Accordion Al (and Sons) Polka Variety Project was concerned.

My next brother was assigned coronet, and he stuck to it fairly well, practicing and moving up a few seats in the band. He may not have been in the 1st Coronet section, but he was close enough to dribble on their shoes when he opened the spit valve and blew out his horn.

I was okay playing clarinet, and had a rousing battle with Linda and Donna for first seat, and soothing my bruised ego when Nick bested us all. It was a fun couple of years.

After sixth grade, the convenient lessons with Mr. Duck after school were done. We made arrangements to continue lessons at a studio near the Parmatown Mall, just a single ride on the RTA #23 away. Also, we were going to have to pay for the lessons. With cash.

My father decided there was no need to go through the bother of a bus ride and pay Mr. Duck money. He would continue my musical education. We all should have been wary of this decision after the guitar incident.

At the age of eight, I had decided I wanted to play guitar and begged my parents for one as my birthday present. They came through, and the lessons were to be taught at the music shop at the end of our street. I could walk there alone, carrying the guitar by its neck. (It was all convenient, and cute, like some 1950s sitcom about a family in a safe neighborhood dealing with inconveniences but always coming together by the end of the episode.) After the second lesson, I told my dad what I learned, and he flipped through the book. “Cancel the lessons,” he said to my mom. “I can teach him that.”

And that was the end of playing guitar.

When 7th grade started, I had fallen so far behind with clarinet that I was relegated to the last section, playing lots of whole notes, drowned out by the blasting, ham-fisted trombones right behind us. Discouraged, I threatened to quit. The band director, always desperate for numbers, offered to move me to bass clarinet.

Tutored by an eighth grader, I was shown a few fingerings. There was just enough difference between these versions of clarinet that I remained frustrated and lost almost all interest. Trapped between the shame of failure and the shame of giving up, I played less and less, skipping parts that demanded anything beyond simple whole notes.

I had fun, though. I watched as Dave flirted with the saxophones in front of us. We exchanged pranks with the first trombones behind us, bumping their music stands during solos, while they showered us with spit.

Best of all, in the loudest sections of rehearsal, I slipped the mouth piece out and practiced whistling. Not the “push your lips together and blow” kind of whistling, but the “fold your tongue and stretch your lips kind” that brusquer, cruder men than myself use to wolf-whistle comely young ladies. By the end of the school year, I’d figured out how to make a small whistling noise.

All through the summer I practiced, gaining control of the tongue and lips, learning how to best position my jaw, and developing breath strength.

That whistle has been my life-long companion, used in celebrations both exultant and mundane. I use it to summon my wife in crowded places (which she hates as much as anything I do) and to announce my presence to strangers.

It’s sharp and shrill and can be unleashed in the blink of an eye, if only to tell those around me, “Here is someone who knows how to whistle.”

Meanwhile, at My Writing Desk…

I’ve been writing more stuff about writing and publishing it on Medium. It’s one of those distraction things, keeping me from finishing the novel. This type of meta-writing is basically learning to whistle when I should be playing the clarinet.

But oh my gawd the novel is so close to being done. Of course, finishing this draft is one thing. Then there will be revisions, consternation, second-guessing, false-shame, unearned shame and, finally, actual shame. Having hit bottom, I’ll realize it’s probably not as bad as I think and may even entertain a few folks.

Then the real work can begin.

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For this Picayune, I’ve teamed up with sci-fi and thriller authors to share our work. Hoping you find something you like, or at least some covers that give you pause…

Midwinter Speculative Fiction Spectacular: