Computer Withdrawal, Block Training
Computer Withdrawal -
I dropped off my laptop at Best Buy at the close of business Monday. The touch pad wasn’t working. I had disabled it previously, because I would invariably touch it with my hand or arm and it would move the typing cursor and I wouldn’t notice for the longest time that I was typing new stuff in the middle of a previous paragraph. That’s one of the drawbacks to only HALF- learning to touch type. If I were really watching the input on the screen, I’d notice such things, but I’m drawn back to looking at the keys instead. Story of my life - that. In many things I’ve been too lazy to put in the total effort up front to learn a concept fully, and I’m too stupid to connect that this will then be another one of those things that will kick me in the end. For example, there is far more effort involved in limping through four years of music college pseudo-transposing bass clef notes than there would have been if I’d sat my stubborn and lazy carcass down for even one concentrated hour to learn to read the stupid things properly. I did the same thing with learning Multiplication Facts long ago. It occurred to me that AxB was the same as BxA, so I, thinking myself to be so superior to the others, decided I only needed to learn them in one direction. And they teach them in order, so I learned the smallest number first. To this day, I have no immediate idea what 7x6 equals, but 6 sevens are 42. (To be most honest, I’m pretty sure I didn’t do this because I thought I was superior. That would have required at least an ounce of self-esteem. I’m sure it was simple laziness.)
It was amusing that my first son, Petey, the supposed intellectual genius, Mr. Math Himself, was planning on doing this very same lazy cheat. Ohhhh…No you don’t! I was still having a little limp or hiccup whenever multiplication or division popped up, because I had to take half a second to switch 7x6 around to 6 sevens, etc. No WAY was I going to let my kid have to suffer even this small inconvenience. And I knew it would bug him far more than it did me, because he was aiming for a life in the math/science world, and being even smarter and quicker and more arrogant than I was, even that small hiccup would tick him off. And yet, I also knew him to be what I’d been affectionately calling “a Gifted Underachiever” (Read: LAZY - which means, like me, he would likely never buckle down afterwards to correct himself either.). And isn’t that what good parenting is about? Making your kids BETTER than you were/are? So, knowing that schools still taught these facts small number first (“Learn your Sixes table before the Sevens”), I immediately set him out on a crash course to learn them “Backwards”. (I could probably have said what my mother would have said in this instance - “You’ll thank me for this later.” But considering that I never actually thanked HER for the bulk of what she taught me, the odds that this little arrogant know-it-all of mine would thank ME were twice as slim. Here is where you switch your philosophies to this one: Since we almost never think to thank our parents, or by the time it occurs to us to do so, they are dead and gone -- The best way to thank them is to pass ON their wisdoms and raise their grandkids AT LEAST as well as they raised us. Obviously the concept of “paying it forward” existed long before the movie popularized the term.
It’s also quite funny to me that my son also doesn’t immediately know the names of all the notes even on the Treble Clef - those within the range of his own instrument, the Trumpet. I figured I was the only Idiot who called that note “six fingers and the side key”, basing it on my Clarinet. Sure, we both know C to C, in the middle of the staff, but once you start adding 2-3 ledger lines above or below, we both just give up. I know if that note tends to have sharps or usually flats, but if you force me to give its letter name, I’m going to do the musical equivalent of counting on my fingers - I’m going to start from the next lowest note I do know and start “counting” alphabetically up 2-3 notes. What an idiot! Can you believe they let someone like this out of music college with a Bachelor’s Degree? Doesn’t say much about my chosen school, does it?
But what was the funniest thing of all wasn’t really even about Math facts or Music, but about Parenting.
In Petey’s large high school marching band, they had student section leaders. These students actually taught scales, lessons, embouchure, and other musical things to their colleagues, and ran full-length rehearsals, and were even in charge of disciplinary actions within their sections. Ooo! Talk about the temptation to abuse power, eh? It is a stereotype (and a true one) that trumpet players are elitist and arrogant and think they are the only important instrument in the band. It’s even pretty cut throat within their own section, as each player secretly believes he could do better than the soloist, the First Trumpet. This was magnified even more in Petey’s particular band because his Band Director was a Trumpet player himself. If you’ve seen the movie “Drumline”, you’re familiar with the rivalry between sections, as each section leader taught his Freshmen that their section was the most important part of the entire band. (And now we now why there were no flutes or piccolos in that movie. LOL)
Years ago, I remember my father telling me never to date a Drummer, because “Drummers are crazy.” This was pretty odd coming from him for a few reasons. 1) This was the ONLY thing he EVER told me about boys, dating, or marriage. 2) Most of my childhood I was convinced he was also Thumper the Rabbit’s father (“If you can’t say anything nice, don’t say anything at all.”). 3) He had been a professional drummer HIMSELF, with his own band, and his own name on the drumset, touring around regionally, back in the Triassic Era (I mean, the Dance Band/Big Band era.). And my father was FAR from wild and crazy ! But he never told me to stay away from Trumpet players, though, and they tend to come in two styles - crazy or arrogant. If you hear about the bizarre hazing rituals the trumpet sections have at Band Camp, you’d know that Crazy is universal with them. (“This one time, at Band Camp…”)
What my father really should have warned me about was Engineers.
So, about that Parenting business… What was hysterical to me at the time was that Petey was so busy rebelling against me, and at the same time acting like a parent himself, with his own charges.
During high school, my son Petey was in the height of his ugly, mouthy, Rebellion Against Mom period - that time when I just “Woke Up Stupid” one morning and EVERYthing I said was “ANNOYING”, where he seemed to be rejecting everything I ever taught him about life, behavior, everything…. And when I mentioned that he would tighten up that value system himself in the future, when he had to raise little kids of his own….(Eek! That was coming dangerously close to the “Mother’s Curse” - “Someday I hope you have a kid Just Like You….THEN you’ll Know.”) He found himself as a parent of sorts - in a leadership position in his Trumpet Section. His two best friends were the actual section leaders, being the 2 highest positions in that huge section, but they had been like the Three Musketeers since Freshman year, and they readily accepted him as a third leader. (Good thing - unless they wanted to have to endure that Eye-Rolling and the contemptuous single raised Eyebrow that I had become so sick of whenever little Mr. Smug thought he could do it better.) So now my kid had over 20 students under him, to teach, train, and drill. And they were determined to be the best Trumpet Section the free world had ever seen! (Actually, it would be more fitting to mention that they all assumed they already WERE such. Gotta love Trumpet Arrogance - it’s really quite funny. But never let THEM see you snickering. They’ll empty the spit valve down the back of your neck while you’re busy in front of them in the clarinet section. Seriously, what heinous crime did the original clarinetists commit that they forever get seated directly in front of the blaring, and dripping, trumpet section? Whatever unforgivable sin it was, REPENT already!)
The other 2 co-leaders were cut from a different cloth than Petey. One was focused on becoming the best Trumpet PLAYER, and the other was everybody’s favorite band member. It’s pretty hard to beat lazy teenagers into shape and remain everyone’s cuddly favorite. But together these three had that section even memorize all the scales, yes, ALL the scales, major and minor and for three octaves where possible. And that section could start said scale on the next downbeat after being told which one - never missing a beat. There was a slew of pushups involved in getting to this point for some. (Knuckle pushups were reserved for lateness, or signs of disrespecting one of the leaders. Uh…What? Dude, how come I couldn’t assign pushups for my little Mr. Blatantly-Disrespectful-in-Public?!! )
This new marching band (corps style marching, not the old school pedantic plodding of my day) had this other group torture called Block Training. It was really close quarters, next row only ONE step in front of you, and everyone almost shoulder to shoulder, and with no instruments at first. (Too many chipped teeth, and too many dings and dents, and the instruments took a beating, also.). They had a loud electronic metronome drilling endless beats right into your skull like the dripping of Chinese Water Torture. And they’d set it at increasing speeds. It could actually increase on its own, incrementally, if desired. And oh, that band director had some twisted desires, at least with this. If he had any others, such tales would be reserved for “band camp” rumors. In Block Training, you had less than a quarter note to both Hear, Mentally Process, and OBEY whatever directional change he called out next. Actually, there was no concept of “next”. There was only NOW. Or OW !! In such a tight formation, those were your two choices. At first, he would change it up maybe every eight measures, but all too soon they were reacting every other beat ! You just knew this guy was the king at musical chairs in his music college, and before that, the class expert at Sadists’ Simon Says on rainy day recesses in grammar school. (Why do they call it grammar school anyway, when no one has learned any before they leave it?) (And no, they don’t actually teach musical chairs in college. We are far too busy with waving around our new pointy white sticks correctly without someone losing an eye, thereby spoiling all the proverbial fun… Or in some of those useless “elective” classes they Force on you, like Underwater Basketweaving - killing two birds with one stone - both a gym credit and a liberal arts elective.) But the musical chairs concept was also part of Block Training. Once you messed up, you were OUT, and the block just tightened up the space, as if you never existed, something like the Borg in Star Trek, everyone functioning as The One. If you were unlucky enough to be in the middle of the hornets’ nest, I mean, the Block, when you messed up, you may be trample to death. I swear I heard a few imitations of Monty Python’s “Bring out your dead! Bring out your dead.” “But I’m not dead yet!”
So that was Block Training. I have no idea what the last person standing got for “winning”. Perhaps fewer bruises, hoof prints or broken bones was incentive enough. They were a pretty militant group as an entire band, but nowhere was a more fervent section than the trumpets with Petey and his other two vigilantes. They were the only section who engaged in this torture of their own accord. I guess you could call this extremist, insane Brass section, a civilian version of Navy Seals or some Special Ops group.
Ya gotta love marching band! And I did. However, it is the closest I ever want to come to military service. All that public humiliation and “Snap obedience” is just not my cup of tea. However, making wagers on who is going to keel over in a dead faint from standing at attention so long does have its amusing aspects. And whether they’ll just wilt (one point), fall backwards (two points), or the Jackpot - kiss the new AstroTurf, and need a nose job. Such fun.
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But back to real life. ( What? Marching Band isn’t real life? There’s life outside of marching band?
Oh yeah….. there’s FACEBOOK !! )
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One of the biggest shames to losing my parents so early is that they didn’t get to watch me parent my own kids for long enough. It would have been nice to hear a compliment now and then, and it would have been very helpful to have someone to turn to for advice. But also, they DESERVED the chance to watch me…… fall on my face and make mistakes ! To watch me turn around and teach exactly the same things I had complained about years before.
I’m just at the beginning of this hysterically funny and self-gratifying time with my own kids. At ages 24 and 22, they are in the “toddlerhood” of Adulthood - no longer kids, and not even “young adults” anymore. They have at least a few toes over the line into true Adulthood and are taking their first wobbly steps. And it is SOOOOOO FUNNY to watch them fall on their faces, or to watch them adopt one of My values after all their whining about it before. I don’t quite know what caused me to “Wake Up Stupid” for a few years of their adolescence, and they haven’t come out and said I’ve gotten over it yet, but their lives are aligning with my steps more and more. I wish my parents had gotten the EXQUISITE PLEASURE of Laughing at ME over this decade, like I snicker and chortle after every visit or phone call with my kids lately. My parents deserved this treat, and I’m sure I would have provided endless entertainment for them.
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“We are the Borg. You will be assimilated. Your biological and technological distinctiveness will be added to our own. Resistance is futile." - Star Trek Voyager