Month: February 2024

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Auditions

I started piano lessons with Sister Aimee when I was six years old. We lived in a duplex across the street from St. Peter Catholic Church. The convent and grade school were a few houses away. My grandparents lived upstairs.

Because we didn’t have a piano, I practiced on an old piano in the church basement, where the church custodian lived. He drank whiskey from a bottle and smelled terrible. I thought he was creepy and I tried not to think about him as I practiced my lesson, alone in the church basement.

When I was eight years old, we moved into our own home two blocks away. My Aunt Margaret gave us a piano, so I didn’t have to practice in the church basement any more.

Sister Aimee was my teacher for the next eight years. She taught only classical music. Popular music was strictly forbidden. In addition to teaching seventy children to play the piano, she also taught music at the Catholic school and directed both the church choir and the children’s choir. She put on an elaborate Christmas pageant every December and an operetta in the spring. I don’t think she ever slept, which probably accounted for her demeanor, which was nothing short of terrifying.

Sister Aimee was tall and skinny. I don’t remember ever seeing her smile. She would check the length of our fingernails before every piano lesson. If they were too long, by her standards, she would grab our hands and forcibly cut the offending nails. The sound of fingernails clicking against piano keys drove her crazy. It was not the only thing that put her over the edge.

Every spring Sister Aimee scheduled an audition at the MacPhail School of Music for all of her students over the age of eight. We were judged by highly trained classical pianists. Thinking back on it, I realize now that Sister Aimee felt that she was the one being judged. If we failed, she failed. She wasn’t going to let that happen.

All year we prepared for our spring audition. We had to memorize ten songs, in varying degrees of difficulty. We had to come to the audition wearing our best clothes, not our tacky school uniforms. By February the pressure was palpable.

Every Monday, Sister Aimee reminded me that I was one of her worst students. Then she would recite a litany of her worst pupils. “You and your brother, Madonna and James Francis, and the Tracys. All of you have lessons on Mondays, so I don’t have to think about you the rest of the week.”

What a strange teaching technique! All of this came to an end when I was in the eighth grade. It was a Monday, as usual, and I entered the piano studio with a sense of dread. The audition was less than a month away.

“What did you work on special this week?” Sister Aimee wanted to know.

“Nothing,” I replied. I meant that I had worked on all my pieces. I didn’t work on anything special. She thought I meant I had not practiced at all.

Sister Aimee went berserk. “Don’t look at me in that tone of voice,” she shouted. “Take off your glasses.”

I did as I was told. I took off my glasses and Sister Aimee slapped me across the face. Hard! And then she continued to slap me. Back and forth she slapped, until finally she caught herself and told me to go home.

My mother knew something was wrong when I came through the door. My face was red and I had been crying.

“What happened to you?” she asked.

“Sister Aimee hit me.”

“Why did she do that?”

“Because I didn’t practice anything special this week.”

When my father came home from work that night, I heard my parents talking in their room.

And then a miracle happened. My father, who rarely spoke to anyone and never used the telephone, picked up the phone and called the convent. He asked to speak to Sister Aimee.

“Sister, this is Bob Jones. Mary Lynda and Robert will not be taking piano lessons any more.” Then he hung up.

The following Saturday, my brother and I were in the car, going to meet our new piano teacher, Hod Russell. Hod was one of the very best Dixieland Jazz piano players in the Twin Cities. He was a kind and gentle man. He told my mother that my brother and I were two of his very best students. I took lessons from Hod for the next four years. I never opened another book of classical music. I never had another audition or recital. Music was my joy and my salvation.

The moral of this story is obvious: Often the worst moments of your life turn out to be the best. In my case, that has certainly been true.

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Fire!

In 1968, when Jim and I were first married, we knew we wanted to move out of the city of Denver. We wanted to live in the mountains, but we both had jobs in Denver. Where could we go that was close to Denver, but not too close? We found the perfect town ~ Idledale, Colorado. A quiet, unincorporated village tucked just west of Denver, Idledale sits in the foothills along Bear Creek. It’s easily overlooked on the drive between Morrison and Evergreen.

Situated at 6,466 feet above sea level, Idledale gave us the right slice of mountain life. The population was about 300 people, more or less. The incredibly beautiful Red Rocks park is close by.

We found a great house. Located on five acres of land, at the top of Grapevine Road, the picture window in our living room provided a view of the entire valley. We had good neighbors. The home cost $15,000.00. We probably bought it with Jim’s GI benefits. Garth was born while we lived there. It was a good life.

Like most of the men of Idledale, Jim signed on as a volunteer on the Idledale Fire Department. The volunteers were a rag-tag group of men, young and old. Women weren’t allowed to join because it was considered bad luck to have a woman in the station. Women were allowed to make sandwiches and deliver them to the station after the fire, however.  No one complained or even questioned the rules. That’s how it was.

Idledale had only one truck when we lived there. The Denver Fire Department donated an old pumper in 1956 and the men built a station to house it. There weren’t any fire hydrants in Idledale. When a fire occurred, the chief drove the pumper into Bear Creek and filled it with water. It was a delicate task. Often  the chief filled it too full, and the pumper quickly became too heavy to climb out of the creek bed and onto the road. The chief then had to keep dumping water back into the creek, until the old pumper could be coaxed out of the stream and up the road to the fire. Meanwhile, women who were home taking care of children, sprang into action. They put fires out using garden hoses and buckets of water. They soaked small rugs in water and beat out the flames before the truck got there. Then they went back to making sandwiches.

For some reason, there were a lot of fires during the four years Jim and I lived in Idledale. The volunteers did their best, but often came home full of soot and ashes.

“How did it go?” citizens would ask.

“We saved the trees,” was the reply. That meant that the house had burned to the ground. The conversation was over.

Eventually someone caught on. It was obvious that only one firefighter was present whenever there was a fire in Idledale. A young man who lived in a small shack in the middle of Grapevine Road was a very enthusiastic firemen. He was often the first person on the scene.

People started asking each other if maybe he was actually starting the fires, just to watch them burn. Sad, but true! He pleaded guilty to arson, went to jail and the incidence of fires decreased dramatically in our small town.

Jim and I sold our home in Idledale and moved to Lakewood soon after Jason was born. We didn’t want to take Garth out of the mountains. He loved being outside, roaming up and down the hills. We had an old dog, with only one eye, who was his constant companion.

Now, as an adult, Garth lives in the mountains of Winter Park with his wife, Bethany. He is an engineer on the Aurora Fire Department. There are women serving with him in the fire station. The guys make their own sandwiches.

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Hero

My mother grew up on a farm in Minnesota during the Depression. There were eight children ~ two girls and six boys. My mom was the youngest. Uncle Bob, not quite two years older, was her best friend and ally against their older twin brothers, who conspired to make their lives absolutely frightful. The twins taught Bob to steer a car when he was five, and my mother, in the back seat, was three. On Christmas Eve the twins sat outside with their air rifles, threatening to shoot Santa out of the sky, while my mother and Bob clutched each other and cried. Bob consoled my mother from a very young age and spent the rest of his life taking care of people. He was a hero.

Uncle Bob was one of the few young men who didn’t serve in WWII. He desperately wanted to enlist but my grandfather wouldn’t allow it. Grandpa wrote a letter saying that all his other sons were married with children. Bob was the only one left to help him run the farm. Without Bob’s help, my grandfather wrote, he would lose the farm.

According to my mother, Bob was devastated. He wanted to go to war, like his friends. He was determined to leave the farm as soon as he could. Eventually my grandparents sold the farm and moved into town. Bob went to work as a mechanic at Thornton Motors, a local Chrysler/Plymouth dealer, one block away from the North St. Paul fire station.

During the war, Uncle Bob continued to help his family. Because my father was in the Navy when my brother was born in 1944, Uncle Bob drove my mother to the hospital. He was still her main confident and friend as she raised my brother and I alone until the war was over and Dad came home again. 

As he watched the other young men return home, Uncle Bob didn’t feel like a hero. Because he wasn’t a veteran, he wasn’t allowed to join the American Legion or the VFW, although he was always welcome to come inside and drink with his friends.

Until he met my Aunt Leslie, the fire station was Bob’s life. He drove the fire truck and made sure it was in good working order.

Because he worked just one block away, Uncle Bob was always the first person to arrive at the station when the siren sounded. He jumped into the truck  and took off. If another firefighter happened get there in time, he would hang onto the back of the truck for dear life as Bob raced to the fire. Other volunteers called the town telephone operator to find out where the emergency was. By the time the other volunteers drove themselves to the fire, Bob was already there, taking care of everything until they arrived.

Later, when the fire call was over, the men met back in the station, drank beer and rehashed what they had just seen. Bob always had a great sense of humor and a huge circle of friends. He was handsome and charming. He was hard-working and kind. He was the guy who drove the fire truck. He was the town hero. 

Eventually North St. Paul hired a paid chief of police. Uncle Bob wanted that position, but he didn’t get it. My family believed that Bob was the most qualified, but didn’t get the job because he wasn’t a veteran.

Unlike my mother’s other brothers who married young, Uncle Bob waited until he was in the late 20’s to get married. When he met Leslie Webster, the whole small town was buzzing. Leslie was the granddaughter of  the town doctor, Dr. Cowan, and the daughter of Bud Webster, the president of the school board. They lived in a big house near Silver Lake. Leslie was young and beautiful. Bob finally found the girl he wanted to marry. 

My brother and I were in Bob’s wedding. I was five years old and my brother was four. The reception was held in a big barn-like building. My only memory of the wedding was the shivaree, performed by Bob’s friends at midnight. Suddenly, in the midst of the celebration, there was a horrible racket outside. There were whoops and yelling like I had never heard before. Bob’s drunken friends were banging on pots and pans with spoons and other utensils in some sort of  mock serenade. My brother and I were terrified. Uncle Bob laughed as he comforted us and warned that we needed to keep his friends outside. If they came inside they might steal the pretty bride. 

Bob and Leslie had four children and lived in a big, beautiful home near Leslie’s parents. Uncle Bob was a devoted husband and father. He loved Aunt Leslie and very much enjoyed spending time with his children. Mom and Leslie were good friends. Dad and Uncle Bob had great times together. 

In 1963, Bob was promoted to branch manager of LP gas sales for Skelly Oil. The job was based in Barron, Wisconsin, near the Minnesota border. Bob accepted the job, but wasn’t happy about leaving North St. Paul. My grandmother was very ill and being cared for in the town nursing home. Bob drove his family back to North St. Paul most weekends to visit her.  It was hard for all of us to see Grandma dying in that small bedroom. I think it must have broken Bob’s heart. 

In 1967, Bob was transferred to Berlin, Wisconsin, a town much further from North St. Paul than his previous assignment. Bob’s job was stressful and he dreamed of returning to North St. Paul when he retired.  But that never happened. In 1977, at the age of 57, Uncle Bob had a massive heart attack. Everyone was devastated. We lost a hero. 

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Ransom

Two years ago, Ernesto qualified to compete in the Mexican National Surfing Contest. He was elated. It was the second time in his life that he qualified for the tournament. The first time was more than forty years ago, when he was 21 years old. That year the tournament was canceled because the waves were not high enough for competition.  Neto went home, disappointed and disgruntled. He had trained for a year and didn’t have his moment to shine. He decided to leave Mexico and go the United States. He wanted to learn to speak English and surf the California beaches. He didn’t return to Mexico permanently for almost twenty years.

Now, at the age of sixty-two, he had a second chance to compete in the Mexican National Tournament. He had accumulated enough points in two separate spring trials to compete in the fall. He was determined to get in shape and win. He surfed throughout the spring and early summer. He was a man with a mission.

Neto called me one night in July, 2022, clearly upset. “I just got the worst news of my life,” he blurted out.

“Oh, my God, what happened?” I figured someone had died or been in a terrible accident.

“Someone broke into the warehouse and stole a lot of surfboards, including my two competition boards.”

I was relieved that no one had died. I didn’t understand that this was traumatic for Neto. Without his boards, he couldn’t compete in the national tournament. He couldn’t practice. There was no longer a reason to get in shape or even get out of bed in the morning.

Dear readers, you need to understand that surfing is Neto’s life. It is his reason for being. His passion for the ocean is what has saved him all these year. This was a major existential crisis.

Neto and the other surfers who had their boards stolen mounted a campaign to get them back. They combed the beaches and notified their friends in surfing towns up and down the Pacific Coast. They visited every surf merchant and pawn shop in town, to no avail. The boards had disappeared.

Neto learned to surf when he was thirteen years old. He was a surfing pioneer  and is easily still one of the best surfers in Mazatlán. His style is smooth and graceful. He looks like a dancer on top of the water.

Neto’s surfboard is as easily recognized as he is. It is bright blue, and 6’4″ long. He’s had it since 2010. Looking out into the ocean, seeing that blue board bobbing in the water waiting for the next big wave, everyone knows that Ernesto Flores is about to take another ride. No robber could sell or pawn that board without getting caught. But it was gone. Nowhere to be found.

Without his board, Neto became more and more depressed. He didn’t want to go to the beach. He didn’t want to talk to anyone. He started drinking again. He laughed and pretended that he was ok, but he wasn’t.

This winter, more than a year after his board was stolen, Neto stopped looking for his stolen boards and bought another board. His new board is yellow and black. It is a 7’4″ long-board. He was happy to be surfing again. His friends were happy to see him back on the beach.

Two weeks ago, the surfing community was buzzing. There were rumors that someone knew where the original stolen boards were being kept. They were still in Mazatlán, in someone’s garage. Publio, Neto’s best friend and surfing buddy, found the man with the garage. The man swore he wasn’t the person who stole the boards, but he was willing to return them ~ for a price. He wanted  Publio to be the intermediary. He didn’t want Neto to confront him in person.

Neto was willing to deal. He would do anything necessary to get his blue board back. He scraped together the ransom money and gave it to Publio. Last Tuesday night, Neto waited anxiously at Publio’s house, while his friend drove to the suspected garage. Two hours later Publio returned, the blue board strapped to the top of his silver Volkswagen station wagon. 

Neto’s board is back. So is he!