Like a pantry full of exotic seasonings our lives were laced with orchestras and bands, Mariachi's and musicals. The Philco floor model radio brought us background music for the day's work and the hymns at church music for worship. In Sunday School came the songs about Jesus and little children, building our faith. There was singing in school, Brownies, and Girl Scouts. Happy songs, and sad songs, and songs of romance and far-away places. When was it, I have to wonder, that people first began to sing?
The first orchestrated singing I remember came the day that Daddy appeared in our living room on Josephine Street with a guitar. We gathered around him when we started hearing him tune it. Then he began to first strum through several chords before picking out a tune. The day before, we had no knowledge of our father's musical capabilities, and now we were hearing and seeing someone with a fair mastery of at least basic principles of music.
The next thing we knew, he was first singing and then having us sing back the words to a cowboy song, The Maple on the Hill. He taught us the beautiful, reassuring hymn, "Whispering Hope", which we loved to sing and later learned to play ourselves. We already knew Down in the Valley, and we expanded our repertoire from there. The songs were portable, and went on to fill hours on long road trips to New Mexico and Texas.
Daddy's new boss moved us from Denver to Colorado Springs, and finally to Pueblo. One day in Colorado Springs Daddy announced one Saturday that we were going to hear a Mariachi band. We had no idea what that meant, but by the look on his face, it was going to be better than Disney Land. He drove us to the Antlers Hotel where some kind of festival--probably Cinco de Mayo--was going on, and we were thrilled to be able to feel the polka rhythms reverberate through the ground and into our bones. The impressive Mariachis wore white rhinestone and sequined suits with gold braid accents and large matching sombreros. It was an unforgettable introduction to Mexican music, and curiously about the same time, Daddy began to listen to Mexican radio while in the car. Or while outside working on the car, turned up a little too loud while confused school acquaintances said within my earshot, "Well, Juanita doesn't look like a Mexican."
Although he always had his fiddle I first heard Daddy play Ragged Bill after we moved to Pueblo, in 1960. He said he used to play in a band when he was younger. We drew the mental picture of him fiddling at a string of barn dances, his laughing eyes and grin in place. But the instrument that most changed our lives was the player piano that appeared one day in our Pueblo living room soon after we moved in. Mary, it turns out, had been given lessons through the public schools in Denver and was already "fluent" in piano. One of her best friends was the daughter of a piano teacher so I was set up for lessons immediately.
Meanwhile, Daddy brought out the paper rolls and hooked the beautiful mahogany monster up to the vacuum in blow instead of suck, bypassing the pedals to make it electric. And he added tacks to the hammers to give it the tinny sound of a honky-tonk while Mother rolled her eyes. Not a lot of time went by before the tacks were gone and Mary Beth and I were vying for time to practice our scales.
Naturally, Mary Beth was a much more disciplined pianist than I was, and in a short while she was accompanying the girl's glee club at school. I continued to practice but deferred to her. Fortunately for us, she had access to some great Broadway music, and we always had the old blue Baptist Hymn Book that included great key-pounders like Flee as a Bird to Your Mountain, and Master the Tempest is Raging. I could play these as well as my sister if I worked long and hard, but my fingers could not really span an octave at 10 years of age. So while she played, I belted out Climb Every Mountain, Flee as a Bird, and On the Street where you live. Daddy and Mother must have been Very Satisfied with their investment.
Daddy, restless soul that he was, had to have something new now and then, so while the grand piano sat upright against the east wall of the Living Room, leaned against the south wall was a banjo. Daddy prowled the hock-shops and junk stores for treasures like this, and he was soon picking at the round and tinny-sounding oddity with some success. Next came the Mandolin, from which Daddy could immediately coax the sweetest sounds ever. The banjo went but the mandolin stayed. Finally, he brought home a blue box with a handle and latch that slightly resembled an over-sized suitcase. When unlatched and opened fully it was a field organ, complete with foot pumps. It was there a little while but didn't hold a candle to the player piano where we worshiped the keys and tenderly polished the finish.
In the summers we would often lay quilts on the grass and lay looking up at the stars while we listened to the Symphony Orchestra concerts amplified from the Art Deco rainbow shell in the park just a few blocks away. The elementary schools still taught classic Christmas Carols in the 1950's and 1960's, so we sang, sometimes in harmony, as snow fell to make our long walk home from school shorter. Even the junior high schools put on a completely costumed and staged musical each year so we participated eagerly, and sang in the church choirs regularly. It was reassuring to have our parents in their Sunday best attending a performance, whether we were performing or watching seated beside them.
The seasonings of beautiful and enjoyable music still permeate our lives. Although the piano didn't make the move to New Mexico, the fiddle and mandolin did and and both now belong to one of my brothers. Mary Beth and I still play the piano a little, and the boys play the guitar. I have a similar piano in less than beautiful condition that my children learned to play "a little". One chose choir, two of went on to study violin, and all enjoy a variety of music. When they were little, like my dad, I made them sing. Everyone sings.
One of my fondest memories of my dad was his love of music. He played the electric guitar which was associated with beer, tobacco and loud friends, so my mother didn't care for it, but he had a perfect ear and taught himself to play "did you think to pray" on my mother's baby grand. I remember watching him play that -- what a treat (he also liked to play Frankie and Johnnie). Whenever we had one of his friends over for dinner, he would insist my mother play the piano and my sisters play their violins. My favorite though was watching him cry at band concerts when my sisters were in junior high. He fell from a tree and as a result became very behind in school in the 6th grade. He also played the coronet at that time. He didn't have anyone to help him catch up on school work or musically with the coronet -- my mother said he always felt bad about that. Now I cannot listen to horns without shedding a tear because it reminds me of him.
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