Toe, Tap, Strings, Keys

I started school a year early. Perhaps it was because I was smart, or Mom wanted me out of the house. Dad got me into a violin program at age five. In two weeks I was tuning all the violins and violas. Forget the celli and bass.

The next step was piano. Then Mom wanted me to take ballet so I wouldn’t end up walking like a truck driver. Her words. I learned in leather shoes, tap shoes and finally went en point when I was eight years old.

I know someone who wore a version of said shoes. My wide feet never belonged in them. She was a prima ballerina in a major American ballet company and still teaches master classes.

The violin lasted about five years. It was devastating to Dad when I quit all of them. I was made to walk around the house with a dictionary on my head for balance. I preferred my aunts who kept a dictionary in the loo where if I used it I had to come out with a new word, say it, spell it, define it and use it in a sentence.

Violin and guitar. Dad passed over the holidays and his executor, best friend and my little brother is OK with me getting his violin. There’s a photo of me probably at age one sitting with his violin as a cello. He made his way through college playing and calling square dances. I would like to recondition it and have found a source. Now my brother and I just need to find it.

We would like to donate it to his alma mater, where there has been a violin scholarship made in his name.

As to guitar, I know more chords than he taught me at age 12, when Santa sent me a cheap one. I now have a nice one that I hydrate and play a song from time to time. I just don’t understand it and my hands are short (bad for piano, violin, guitar) so my F is non-existent. As to dance, I won’t even go shopping with a girlfriend unless it’s for her wedding. Mom said that she should have bought two pair of shoes for my sister and let me wear the boxes. Harsh, you think? She told me that walking barefoot all summer (eight weeks) made my feet grow wide.

Improvise. Yes, that is what he did. I search for lyrics, put them in a plastic sleeve in a book and make up the chords to sing. Yes, I did school choir as well. I can tell you one thing, I can’t dance as well as Christopher Walken. Cheers! Dee