My 100th Post

Well, this is my 100th post so I know I'm supposed to do some getting to know me thing but I'm not sure I'm up for the whole list thingy so I'll just let one tid-bit slide to meet a small fraction of the obligatory. I started playing cello in the 5th grade, late bloomer. By the time I was in the 8th grade I auditioned for and made it into the Midwestern United States youth philharmonic.

Lots of parental moving, I also went to 13 different schools between 1st and 12th grade, eventually put the kibosh on my career as a cellist and by the 9th grade I was your usual jock high school guy...who loved classical music and had his own personal collection secreted away at home where none of my friends knew about it. The problem I ran into is that I was too skilled for the school orchestra where we had moved. By that time I was receiving private lessons from a professional cellist and playing in a private youth symphony, the Youth Orchestra of San Antonio. I quickly tired of sawing away at the same old crap and having the orchestra teacher ask me to "go work with the cello section" meaning please go teach them how to stop making that infernal racket while I work with the rest of the strings to try and get them to stop making their infernal racket.

However, for years I drug my cello around, though it stayed with the parents when I went off to the Marine Corps. I did take up the bassoon because it was easier to transport and easier to find a teacher who could actually teach me something since I was a novice. But I kept comparing my sound as a cellist to my sound as a bassoonist and I just couldn't cut it. I switched over to the double bass for a bit but was loosing patience and drifted away.

As a young adult I returned to my dusty cello from time to time and played the single piece of music I retained, a cello concerto written by Antonin Dvorak. I became disgusted with my decline in skill and eventually sold my cello wanting it to have a real life as a musical instrument. To this day I become entranced at the sound of a cello well played, I can feel it, as some would say, in my soul.

The GEEKGRL and I tried to foster an interest in music in our kids but to no avail, they are all about the video games, you can't fight with a kid to get them to love something...it ruins the kid and the something. I also determined to set down roots in one place and provide them with the opportunity to become involved in something, whatever that may be, and be able to see it though their high school years with the same group of friends and whatnot. I like to think this has been a good choice but, in my eyes, the evidence is lacking. Like I said, they are all about the video games. Well, they have their lives and I have mine. As a parent I sure hope they have something they can look back on with nostalgia in the same manner I can look back. Maybe I was a particularly driven youngster and would have benefited more from the long-term stability that Place can offer.

The paths our lives will take...such an adventure. Maybe some day when I'm old and rickety I'll go out and purchase an old and rickety cello and begin my love affair anew.