On a recent Saturday night, my son hugged me “goodbye” in the parking lot of the bar where we had met to shoot pool. The next day, on the television show “CBS Sunday Morning,” there were these things that connected with my life: A young boy’s letter to a university marching band, and a famous Italian tenor’s voice.
When Chris was very young, he had an interest in the insects that populated his world. His sister, Lauren, was participating in a program at her school called “Super Saturday.” She would attend Super Saturday events at Purdue University. When her brother started to gather and cultivate Praying Mantids, his mother wrote to ask Dr. Alan York, the head of entomology, for suggestions on how to feed the insects in the winter. Dr. York was impressed with the youngster’s ability to nurture the insects and sent his mother fruit fly cultures, which Chris fed to the mantids. (And giant Madagascar hissing cockroaches, which gave me the willies.) In high school, Chris branched out from entomology to marching band. I took him to band camp one year, and his disciplined approach to the movements of the marching band as he played his marching quads (four drums) impressed his dad. Henry Boyer was a nine-year-old third grader when he saw the University of Michigan marching band perform. He wrote to the band, and they sent him Michigan swag, a letter telling him to practice, and promised him an audition when he was old enough. I imagined that Henry practiced with the same ardor that my son showed as he trained to qualify for marching band.
That previous Thursday – Thanksgiving – my eldest child had called me; I heard Luther Vandross singing in the background. “Sing it, Joni” she screamed into the phone. Her mother, in attendance at Lisa’s Thanksgiving fest, had encouraged her to call, knowing that I would belt out “A House Is Not A Home,” just as I had long years ago. Lisa told me that for many years she had thought of my singing along with my friend’s keyboard work as the doings of “old men in the garage.” She now understands that we were in our twenties. “You were young guys!” When grade school Lisa had to prepare a program for school, she gave the teachers this: “My dad is going to sing.” She also “presented” me as part of a church program. And on the CBS Sunday Morning show, Andrea Bocelli was interviewed. The sound of his voice reminded me of when I played his recording of “Ave Maria” over and over as I tried to learn the song so that I might perform it at a friend’s wedding. The recording I listened to was in Italian and I learned those words and sang them at two different weddings. I only know the song in Italian.
Those memories were sifted from my brain by the stories on the Sunday Morning show, and drifted onto my plate of reflection, to be enjoyed anew. A young boy’s desire to be a part of the Michigan marching band was an echo of my son’s desire to join a marching band. Andrea Bocelli’s singing, which trailed my eldest’s requests for a song, called up my days of “garage band” practice, which gave to my daughter the resource for her church and school programs and helped me in my brief stints as a wedding singer, and participant in honky-tonk bar karaoke. Those decades-old practice sessions still contribute to my spontaneous cider-house crooning.
And as Lionel Ritchie sang, “That’s why I’m easy; easy like Sunday morning.”
cjon3acd@att.net