High In"Fidel"ity

In the spirit of Thanksgiving Day and the Feast of St. Cecilia, I want to express my gratitude to an individual from my past. As I entered high school, I was completing my 7th or 8th year of piano lessons. After so many years, the lessons can seem like somewhat of a drag. I also questioned how "cool" it was for a high schooler to take piano lessons. I was considering giving up the lessons.

I lived a fair distance from my high school and, as a result, took a school bus to and from school. For all of my four years in high school, the same man drove the bus. He was a dead ringer for Fidel Castro and he ruled the bus like a dictator.

Since I was often the last person to be dropped of after school, I had the chance to talk with "Fidel". In addition to driving the bus, Lee (his real name)was a fairly well-known piano player at local dinner clubs. After learning that I took piano lessons, he constantly encouraged me to continue. I sensed that he knew I was thinking about discontinuing the lessons. He told me stories about famous pianists ranging from Beethoven to Liberace. He always reminded me of how music played such a significant positive role in his life. He also insisted on dropping me off at the home of my piano teacher on my lesson days (her home was a significant distance from my home).

Although he never gave me an instrumental music lesson, Lee certainly gave me many lessons about music. Given the significance of this particular day, it is only appropriate that I express gratitude that Lee encouraged me to continue my music studies over 30 years ago. If not for Lee, I would have given up my music lessons. I would have never been in the position to have been taken under the wing of an incredible organist, teacher and friend a few years later. I would not have played a bombastic organ piece prior to my wedding. I wouldn't be playing the piano and organ at the two churches to which I belong. I would not have been able to play Christmas music for my family this morning.