08/29/2024
Not a Swiftie, just a Slowee but end of an Era!
About 2 weeks ago I posted the story of God's faithfulness for sustaining my life for the past 50 years. He has indeed been very faithful.
This is a different story that began in 1959. My mother insisted that I take piano lessons. I still remember the stale cigar smell of my Daddy's wrecker as he would drive the 7 miles from our home to piano lessons when no one could get around. But my Daddy drove the wrecker up the long snow covered streets shifting gears and sliding that old heavy w***h truck safely delivering me to Miss Potter's house.
Again, my mother insisted that I practiced daily. I've told this story before but when I was in 5th grade
I started band and chose a sax. WOW! This was really cool. So I, being all wise at the age of 10, announced to my mother that I was just gonna play sax but not piano.
This was her reply "You can stop piano lessons when I'm dead."
Parents didn't give kids options when I grew up. If they said jump, I didn't even dare ask how high, I just jumped. I didn't grow up with an identity crisis. We knew who we were. We were Marvin and Emma Daniel's kids. Our life was secure and none of my siblings or I questioned our identities. We were Marvin and Emma's kids and that was enough then and it's even enough now.
Anyway, I digressed from my story. I have a friend on Facebook named David N Marcia Coston. I wonder if he remembers this incident.
Back to band and sax. In a few years, they threw the young band students in with the highschoolers and I was last chair alto sax. Our band director's named was Doris Tabor. He stopped the band and asked who missed the G # in the sax section. This big senior 1st chair sax said as he pointed his finger at me, Kay Daniel, the disgrace of the saxophone section.
So now, I wanted to quit piano and sax. I remember walking home carrying that old King alto sax and crying with each step I took.
My mother, said we are gonna fix this. She found me a sax teacher. Miss Joanne Peters. In 4 months, I was first chair. Cause my mother wouldn't let me quit. I knew who I was.
As time went on, I needed a new professional sax. My teacher helped me pick out one just like hers.
But things changed again as my hero Miss Joanne moved away. Miss Joanne also had piano students. There were no other piano or sax teachers in our town so at the age of 13, I began
teaching. I became a big duck in the little pond of our community. It was the beginning of the longest and most rewarding era of my life.
If I had the time, I could tell story after story of the adventures I've had teaching.
Jazz Band and Girls Ensemble opening at the Lawrence Welk Show, touring, competing, winning, losing (you never really lose if you learn a lesson), marching band in sub freezing weather, concert band festivals, district and state festivals, fine arts, loving students, sending them to college or conservatory. Thirty years of homeschool music education. My time as a Rock Star Band Director at Crosspoint. (It was a riot!) Maybe I should write down all these memories!!! It has been a lifetime calling!
This ERA ends today as I close the studio. There are multitudes of people who have touched my life. I can't say thank you enough. What a joyful time!! My life was better. . because I knew you.
But I don't want to quit piano or sax anymore.
