The Next Louis Armstrong

 

I received an email the other day announcing the formation of the ORSO or Oconee Regional Symphony Orchestra. Made up of volunteers and designed to bring cultural enhancement to our area, the announcement nearly sent me into a state of what’s known as delayed depression. This is where you forget something for at least 50 years and then, if you live long enough, somebody brings it up and you remember it and it wasn’t good. A lot of old relatives will do this at holidays just to see if anybody remembers bad stuff and it usually ends up with half the families going home early after the “fireworks”. Usually starts with the phrase, “remember when”.

Sometimes I go into it when I remember Mike Walker beating me to the streetlight in 60’ cause he hit puberty before I did but I didn’t know what puberty was and figured he was just faster. Plus he weighed more than me and that made it even worse. But I digress. I have no idea where the hock shop silver trumpet mom and dad purchased in 57’ is today and therefore cannot attend the auditions. This is probably a good thing because if I did to ORSO what I did to that fifth grade band and music director, they’d no doubt use me as a balloon vendor prior to the event instead of last chair trumpet. See, some of us are made to play musical instruments and others the drums. I wanted to be a drummer but got drummed out of that by Tommy Hoskins, the class favorite and since there was only one set of the things and lord knows that was enough, he got to play drums and I got last chair trumpet. Last chair trumpet was not near far enough away from the band director and in an effort to save his and the children’s hearing he placed me at the very back of the stage behind a curtain.

Said it would carry the notes so I would be able to hear them more clearly. Every once in a while he’d peek around the curtain with a look that said, “Are you still here?” I lasted a couple of months, and learned that really good music can often be found on a crystal radio. Well, the keys stuck on the darn thing. And no matter how much of that expensive oil you squirted down the plungers, they still stuck. So when I hit a bad note (which was every other) it hung on like a pair of symbols, reverberating (a word I learned in band) throughout the stage area, reminding everyone I was still behind the curtain.

Mom and dad had invested quite a bit of money in the silver trumpet, a whopping five dollars, hoping I would become another Louis Armstrong I suppose and Mom insisted I practice outside, even though Tennessee winters can be rough. She said the cool air would help carry the notes so I would be able to hear them more clearly. Dad thought I should be held back a grade to perfect that thing before moving on to sixth grade band. He always thought I was the best at anything I chose to do but dad was fallible and in this instance, dead wrong. In the end the oil can was as empty as the notes and even these two wonderful people, who thought they had created at the least the world’s greatest slide flute player, decided there was no way they were going to spend more money on a silver trumpet that, when played by me, always reminded them of a New Orleans funeral procession.

They steered me toward the choir. There I learned I couldn’t sing any better than I could play the trumpet and so gave up everything but the crystal radio. Today I have ITunes. Best of luck to ORSO! We could use some cultural enhancing around here and don’t worry, hopefully that silver trumpet is a chalice in somebody’s silver collection. But, if you’re in need of a drummer……..dreams never die.