Trombone
I desperately wanted to play in the school band in grade six. I begged and pleaded to play the clarinet. Elongated, sleek ebony and shiny silver metal in a pretty little case perhaps lined in dark red velvet, reeds lined up in their little boxes. String-ed spit-rags, folded just so.
But alas, it was not to be.
I had to play the TROMBONE if I wanted to be in the school band because we were a family of six with no money for such luxuries as rented instruments and we happened to handily have one in the attic. No exceptions for poor little Morticia were forthcoming. So, I steeled myself to the idea that it might be cool to play a trombone although it was a giant among trombones once owned by my great uncle and way too big for a 6th grader.
The battered case had seen better days and was in danger of falling apart so my father kindly sequestered himself in his workshop and after much table-sawing, banging and cursing, he was done. I was quietly sitting outside in the yard, idly burning ants with my magnifying glass when he finally emerged. My jaw dropped as I stared in mute wonder. Never before had I seen such a monstrosity. It was fashioned out of HALF-INCH PLYWOOD and weighed 3 tons and was shaped juuust like a miniature coffin. He proudly showed me the inside where he had attached little blocks of wood for a custom fit for the instrument and even a tiny compartment for incidentals. He was much pleased with himself and went into the house for a congratulatory beer or three and I was alone in the yard with the little coffin. I took a turn around it to see it in all its splendor and from every angle and thought I wonder if I could actually fit into it.
I could.
It really should have had flames painted on the front and been made into a pedal-car so that I could have RIDDEN it to school. I doubted my strength to pick it up empty let alone with the instrument in place. But, with resignation and not wanting to hurt my beloved daddy's feelings, I joined the school band balancing the trombone on the handles of my bicycle, knobby knees banging on the case at every rotation of the pedals. For 3 lonnnng months, I huffed and puffed my way to school twice a week to play the becoming-hated instrument of DOOM. Because I was the ONLY TROMBONE PLAYER in the whole school nay the whole world, I was not ridiculed as I rightly should have been about my little coffin and my lack of playing skills and was something of a celebrity to the boy up the street who took to HUMPING my case to school for me, at my command.
During my time as a trombone player of some repute, I learned to play possibly three notes with any accuracy and luckily for me, the times I actually had to BLAT out a note were few and far between. The teacher would be standing in front in an otherworldly reverie as some music teachers do, twitching and waving with his baton and the deafening cacophony would quell and the dreaded little stick would swing in slow motion toward the far right were I was sequestered and time would stand still as it was pointed
diRECTly at me.
Up would come the trombone, held in trembling girlie-hands and brought to soft pouty girlie-lips and BLAT I would sound my one or two notes and the dissonance would rise around me again and I would hang my head in shame, lank shapeless hair hiding my reddened face. After a month of this and despite my fear of love for my father, I started asking, begging, pleading WAILING to be allowed to quit. It was all just too much to take. After many tears, he relented and let me quit although that was not his parenting style. Once a Child began Something (specially when so much hard woodworking work was put into the Something), the Child must follow it through, no matter what.
Even though it may scar the Child for life.
But alas, it was not to be.
I had to play the TROMBONE if I wanted to be in the school band because we were a family of six with no money for such luxuries as rented instruments and we happened to handily have one in the attic. No exceptions for poor little Morticia were forthcoming. So, I steeled myself to the idea that it might be cool to play a trombone although it was a giant among trombones once owned by my great uncle and way too big for a 6th grader.
The battered case had seen better days and was in danger of falling apart so my father kindly sequestered himself in his workshop and after much table-sawing, banging and cursing, he was done. I was quietly sitting outside in the yard, idly burning ants with my magnifying glass when he finally emerged. My jaw dropped as I stared in mute wonder. Never before had I seen such a monstrosity. It was fashioned out of HALF-INCH PLYWOOD and weighed 3 tons and was shaped juuust like a miniature coffin. He proudly showed me the inside where he had attached little blocks of wood for a custom fit for the instrument and even a tiny compartment for incidentals. He was much pleased with himself and went into the house for a congratulatory beer or three and I was alone in the yard with the little coffin. I took a turn around it to see it in all its splendor and from every angle and thought I wonder if I could actually fit into it.
I could.
It really should have had flames painted on the front and been made into a pedal-car so that I could have RIDDEN it to school. I doubted my strength to pick it up empty let alone with the instrument in place. But, with resignation and not wanting to hurt my beloved daddy's feelings, I joined the school band balancing the trombone on the handles of my bicycle, knobby knees banging on the case at every rotation of the pedals. For 3 lonnnng months, I huffed and puffed my way to school twice a week to play the becoming-hated instrument of DOOM. Because I was the ONLY TROMBONE PLAYER in the whole school nay the whole world, I was not ridiculed as I rightly should have been about my little coffin and my lack of playing skills and was something of a celebrity to the boy up the street who took to HUMPING my case to school for me, at my command.
During my time as a trombone player of some repute, I learned to play possibly three notes with any accuracy and luckily for me, the times I actually had to BLAT out a note were few and far between. The teacher would be standing in front in an otherworldly reverie as some music teachers do, twitching and waving with his baton and the deafening cacophony would quell and the dreaded little stick would swing in slow motion toward the far right were I was sequestered and time would stand still as it was pointed
diRECTly at me.
Up would come the trombone, held in trembling girlie-hands and brought to soft pouty girlie-lips and BLAT I would sound my one or two notes and the dissonance would rise around me again and I would hang my head in shame, lank shapeless hair hiding my reddened face. After a month of this and despite my fear of love for my father, I started asking, begging, pleading WAILING to be allowed to quit. It was all just too much to take. After many tears, he relented and let me quit although that was not his parenting style. Once a Child began Something (specially when so much hard woodworking work was put into the Something), the Child must follow it through, no matter what.
Even though it may scar the Child for life.