"Who's gonna drive you home tonight?"

(title quote: The Cars, Drive)

"It happened fast in a flash, just this evening
As I hit the gas, horn blast, brakes were screaming
As the car crashed, broken glass, broke my dreaming."
- Mat Kearney

Sometimes it seems like every forward step I take is accompanied by two leaps backwards. It's not the job, that's great so far. I still feel like I'm wearing someone else's shoes, but at least they're close to the right size. I'm actually not too bad at this. I haven't sold any of the difficult items we are asked to sell to customers, like memberships or magazine subscriptions, but I came extremely close to both today. There's no commission involved, but we do have sales goals.

"Went out and hopped in my old ford
Hit the engine but she ain't turnin'
We've given each other some hard lessons lately
But we ain't learnin'
We're the same sad story thats a fact
One step up and two steps back."
- Bruce Springsteen, One Step Up

I was actually comfortable enough today to start working humor into my repertoire. I'm normally always the clown who's cracking jokes and stuff, but I had to learn the procedures and equipment to get comfortable with it before I could start to loosen up. Today, I started letting myself into my work persona and letting that persona be more pure "me" than it was the first day. I can also open myself up in a way I couldn't do as a teacher. I did get my first irate customer today, but she was apparently functionally illiterate. She kept leaving a word out of a promotional poster to justify her saving money, even when I underlined the word with my finger. Oh well, I've handled worse during my time as a teacher. She didn't show me anything I haven't seen a million times worse.

I also had a young lady come in looking for a CD she didn't think I was going to be familiar with, but which happens to be one of my favorite CD's. It is Awake by Secondhand Serenade. She came in to listen to it on one of our machines because it was recommended by a friend. I sold her on it almost instantly. We compared musical tastes and found that she likes a lot of my favorite music. I told her to come back in for more recommendations and told her she could even listen on my ipod if we didn't have something in the store and I would order it for her. I also had a customer come in looking for a good "jazzy" piano CD and I was able to recommend some of my favorite jazz pianists for his listening enjoyment. I guess I'm still teaching.

"Stripped and polished, I am new, I am fresh." - Secondhand Serenade, Your Call

It was as I was leaving the parking lot that fate struck. I was following my co-worker to the bank because we have a "two man rule" for deposits, when as I rounded the corner, my brakes failed. I knew as soon as I stepped on the pedal that it wasn't gonna be enough. My dad's car, which is what I was driving since it's been amazingly hot and humid here, sometimes loses power when it first starts running, like a "brown out" in a house. If I let it idle a bit before taking off, it evens out, but since my co-worker started to pull out, I had to go.

When we got to the end of the driveway and he stopped, I hit the brakes and the power went down as I took my foot off the gas. When I pressed the pedal, it didn't give me enough, so I had to muscle it down and then it just locked up. I slid into the back of my co-worker's car. He had been telling me earlier that he's been in six accidents over the past two years and none have been his fault. I don't remember if he braked late or not. I was too busy with the mental "OH SHIT!!!" response (I said it, but at least I didn't do it, proving Bill Cosby at least partially wrong). I didn't think he wanted to demonstrate his proclivity for car wrecks just to prove it was true.

"Now whether or not you hit the truck, you are going to have soiled underwear. Cause first you say it, then you do it!" - Bill Cosby

We both got out of the car and made sure the other was unhurt. His car, which is an old tank of a car, even older and more tank-like than my dad's car, didn't even have a single scratch on it anywhere. Nothing. My dad's car, on the other hand, is in need of a new front bumper and left side headlight assembly. I already bent the grill guard back into place and have a mallet I can use to straighten the hood. That should be well within my body work capabilities (why do you think I have a body mallet?... I had to pop a dent out of my trunk lid once). Bumpers and the accompanying paint job are not cheap. He was okay with not calling it in, since his car was completely undamaged and my dad doesn't have collision coverage on his car, just liability. He has always insured them like that, just enough to be legal and I don't understand it. I'm glad he was cool about that, since I don't need the points on my license or increased insurance rate at all. I just hope that he is still friendly with me at work and really doesn't hold it against me. My big worry now is the damage to my dad's car (which my mom calls her car) and their reaction to it. My mom is going to cry.

“You win some, lose some, and wreck some." - Dale Earnhardt

Once when I was about 11, I was building a model airplane and went to ask my father a question. I set the glue bottle down on her new coffee table in the living room and when I picked it up a few minutes later, it had taken the finish off in the shape of the bottom of the bottle. My dad and I went to the hardware store and bough all the necessary supplies to refinish that spot, but the new finish either soaked in or rubbed right off. My dad set a doily over it and we hoped she wouldn't notice. When she arrived home from work, she immediately walked over to the out of place doily and lifted it, revealing the scar underneath. She burst into tears and ran into her bedroom. She actually stayed up all night crying that night and didn't leave her room the next day (remember, she cried so hard when she found out I resigned my teaching job that she had to go home from work the rest of the day and then lost the next two nights of sleep). She cried herself to sleep that night. She didn't speak to either of us for about two weeks. She has still not forgiven us for that table we ruined 26 years ago. She is going to be less than pleased about the car.

“There is no such thing as accident; it is fate misnamed." - Napoleon Bonaparte

I don't have the money to fix it. Even with the new job, we are going to be in a financial bind, which is like saying the Exxon Valdez had a small leak. The job simply doesn't pay enough to cover our expenses yet. We just had another car repair. Even if I let the bumper go until later, I will need the headlight, and soon. Even if I get the promotion to management training and then assistant manager in a timely manner, it will still take time for that to happen and my income to increase. Even if I get that, I will have a 50% pay cut from my teaching job. I knew that going into this, but was hoping no additional expenses like car repairs would pop up to debilitate us.

My wife has a contract to build a website (she is just getting into freelance graphic design and though she has done some jobs already, this is her first website, so she is struggling with some of the coding), so that will help if she can get it finished soon (any html wizards want to serve as troubleshooters?). I need to get some queries... heck, a query, accepted quickly... for pay. I am off Thursday and Friday, so I will be working on some ideas I have for queries and fleshing out my "big idea" for one that I've been researching in my free time. It's a great idea for an article for a men's magazine, but it's research intensive and I want it to be flawless and well informed.

Maybe this is a sign that I need to get on the stick and be more active in marketing myself as a writer. This is a call to action, the abandonment of complacency. This is a catalyst to avoid getting caught up in the rhythm of my new job and life. This is a trigger to keep me from letting my dream of writing get lost in the currents of life and the world around me.

“On the occasion of every accident that befalls you, remember to turn to yourself and inquire what power you have for turning it to use." - Epictetus

"I'm gonna be a happy idiot and struggle for the legal tender..."

"Never continue in a job you don't enjoy. If you're happy in what you're doing, you'll like yourself, you'll have inner peace. And if you have that, along with physical health, you will have had more success than you could possibly have imagined." - Johnny Carson

There were a lot of things I loved about teaching. Being able to share my knowledge and wisdom, not just about music, but about life and success and growing up and a million other things, is an incredibly rewarding opportunity. By the time I left, there were just too many things about the job that were not only unsatisfying, but incredibly disheartening. The climate of the American public education system has changed a great deal in the past 15 years. The amount of misplaced accountability has skyrocketed. Society is amazingly critical of teachers. They are underpaid, overworked, and generally maligned for doing an extremely difficult job day after day with inadequate resources and uncooperative clients. Music teachers, in particular, are considered to be an even lower class of contributors to society. When I told people what I taught, their reply was invariably, "Oh, so you're not a real teacher." Even teacher look down on music teachers. The stress of the job is phenomenal, especially with the lack of a support system.

"Midway upon the journey of my life,
I found myself in a dark wood,
where the right way was lost."
- Dante Alighieri, The Divine Comedy

So it was that I left my career of 14 years as a high school music educator and spent some time wandering in Dante's woods. I rediscovered my dream of being a writer. This quote from my first post on this blog seemed so apt when I included then, and seems even more so now. I have no idea where this path will emerge from the woods, or even when. The trees press around me and make it seem as though I may never see the sun without the filter of their branches, for that is what a dark time in our life is like, seeing the sun through a filter of thick branches. I know that it still shines, for today I entered a bit of a clearing.

"Don't waste life in doubts and fears; spend yourself on the work before you, well assured that the right performance of this hour's duties will be the best preparation for the hours and ages that will follow it." - Ralph Waldo Emerson

Today was the first day of work at my new job. This is not a career, mind you, it is but a way of keeping roof overhead and sustaining my physical self, so that my mental self has the freedom to create. I asked a few people when I first embarked on this journey if it was possible for a person's main occupation and their career to be two different things. Most people did not comprehend the possibility. Several firmly told me that it could not be so. I believed then, and still believe today, that it can be true. My career is "writer" but my job at this time is "retail media specialist."

"And I want to thank you for caring about my job, really." - Zack, Employee of the Month

I would like to thank all of my friends and readers who took the time to send me happy thoughts and positive vibes, all of those who said prayers on my behalf, all of those who truly cared about how I would fare in this transition, and still do. It is appreciated more than you know.

"You see, what we're actually trying to do here is, we're trying to get a feel for how people spend their day at work... so, if you would, would you walk us through a typical day, for you?" - Bob Slydell, Office Space

I started my work day at about 1:00 this afternoon by learning the finer points of the software and hardware used to complete transactions. The P.O.S. terminal (no, it means point of sale) is the central conduit for everything from clocking in and out to checking for release dates on the internet and ringing up purchases. When I last worked in retail back in the late 1980's, I was using a "simple" cash register (so simple that nobody else in the hardware store I was working in at the time really knew how to use most of its functions... I programmed it and taught everyone else how to use it). That bore only an ancestral resemblance to this computer terminal.

I look at it this way. When I was much younger, I was involved in music as a performer. I played music for the enjoyment of others. As I grew older, I became involved in music as a teacher. I taught people to play music for the enjoyment of others. Now, I am involved in music as a vendor. I sell people music that they can listen to for their enjoyment. It is really like a circle. We sell CD's, DVD's, some sheet music, and things like mp3, CD, and DVD players and such. I get to work directly with people who are looking for some entertainment to brighten their day. I get the chance to share my knowledge and excitement about music and movies with these people. I get to talk to them. I even got to talk about the Mets today to a guy who came in wearing a David Wright jersey. I have a direct impact on people almost every moment of the day, much like I did when teaching. The big difference is that if they don't like what I recommend, or the way in which I present it, I don't get called into my supervisor's office because mommy or daddy visited him to complain that I didn't explain the product well enough, or that I spent more time with some customers than with others. The difference in the level of responsibility was vast and liberating. If I screw up, it does not "destroy" lives (we know that sometimes teenagers lives are "destroyed" by the smallest things). I am not directly responsible for the fragile self-image of a hundred other people simultaneously. At this point in my life, that is refreshing.

I think it must be the ghost of Cory's suicide haunting me. That event, when a former student took his own life because he did not find the rest of the world as accepting as my band program, has changed my life forever. I can never escape the responsibility I felt and to some extent still feel. I don't blame myself. I know I could not have prevented it. I know I couldn't save everyone. I just couldn't let that happen again on my watch. I saved some people who were extremely close to taking the same steps to end their unhappiness and dissatisfaction with life, but it took its toll on me. Now I must be the student and learn to reconnect with myself. I must observe the variety of people who will come through my store each and every day and learn all I can from watching them and interacting with them. I will not have a direct impact, but I will affect them in small ways... and I will watch.

"Life is like a mop. Sometimes life gets full of dirt and crud and hairballs and things and you gotta clean it out. You gotta stick it in here and rinse it off and start all over again. And sometimes life sticks to the floor so much that a mop, a mop, it's not good enough. You gotta get down there with like a toothbrush, you know, and you gotta really scrub 'cause you gotta get it off. But if that doesn't work, you can't give up. You gotta stand right up. You gotta run to a window and say, 'These floors are dirty as hell, and I'm not gonna take it any more!'" - Stanley Spadowski, UHF

For now, I learn the routine. I learn the procedure, the system, the rules of the game. At times today, things just felt strange. I was never unhappy. I just felt out of place at times. I felt like this was a diversion, and eventually I would go back to my old life. I think that feeling is normal immediately after any big change. It's like when you take ice skates or catcher's gear off and you still feel as if you are wearing them for a while afterward. It's going to take time. I have to come to terms with my new reality.

I will say that at the end of the day, my younger co-worker was exhausted and couldn't wait for the time to pass until we could close the store and he could go relax. Both of my co-workers were astounded by my lack of a need to leave the sales floor and my constantly being able to straighten stock and engage with customers without seeming to tire. To be honest, I am physically tired. My legs are sore. The difference between this and how I felt at the end of a day of teaching was this. At the end of a day of marching band, I was physically and mentally drained. I had to make thousands of split second decisions every minute, affecting the well being of a hundred other people. I had to monitor the heat, check for clouds that may contain lightning, scan the kids for signs of heat exhaustion or dehydration, evaluated hundreds of points of reference for musical and physical (marching) performance at all times. I had to supervise, monitor and adjust, track behavior and progress, encourage and motivate, discipline and praise. I had to coordinate millions of variables mentally at all times simultaneously. Talk about multi-tasking! At the end of a day of concert or jazz band, I was physically fine, but mentally drained from all of those mental calculations. At the end of my work day today, I was mentally fresh, but physically tired.

For me, physical tiredness, aching in the muscles and such, takes much less of a toll on my well-being. Due to my old injuries and some chronic pain I deal with every day, I am used to letting physical pain roll off of me. I am sore, but I am not tired. I am physically strong, even without working out regularly (my students were always amazed by my physical strength and loved to challenge me to arm wrestling after concert clean-up was finished, thinking I would be worn-out from carrying heavy equipment and conducting for an hour... few ever beat me). I can handle this. I am sure that there will be mentally taxing days. I know that I will come home frazzled at times, but so far I feel that I am in a good place, where my talents in working with others will be maximized, my knowledge of movies and music will be utilized, and my wisdom and experience will grow and develop. My dream is to be a writer. I write the human experience.

"The work goes on, the cause endures, the hope still lives and the dreams shall never die." - Edward Kennedy

It is my turn to be the student. The entire world is my teacher. There are so many different kinds of people in this world and, being in the heart of a tourist "mecca," our store sees visitors from all parts of it.

Welcome to my store. What kinds of music are you looking for? What types of movies do you like? I will be there, at your service, every day that I am called to be. Just know that I am watching... and learning.

"I'm going to pack my lunch in the morning
And go to work each day
And when the evening rolls around
I'll go on home and lay my body down
And when the morning light comes streaming in
I'll get up and do it again."
- Jackson Browne, The Pretender

"Anything worth doing is difficult."

"If a man is called to be a street sweeper, he should sweep streets even as Michelangelo painted, or Beethoven composed music, or Shakespeare wrote poetry. He should sweep streets so well that all the hosts of heaven and earth will pause and say, here lived a great street sweeper who did his job well." - Martin Luther King, Jr.

When we first moved to this area eight years ago, we happened to discover a restaurant that featured an "all-you-can-eat" pizza buffet. The pizza wasn't the best I have ever had, and the selection of choices was about average as well, but the price was right, so we sat down and began to eat way too much pizza.

At some point during the meal, we began to hear the normal clatter of plates, cups and silverware as a nearby table was being cleared. To our surprise, the familiar sounds of a table being cleared are soon accompanied by singing. we turned around to see where the singing was coming from, and were astonished to see that the man clearing the table was doing so at near light speed. I have never seen anyone work so quickly at busing a table. He was fast and efficient. Most interestingly, he was also smiling broadly and on occasion, would spontaneously burst into song. The songs he sang were all songs of joy and happiness. When he found a tip on a table, he would immediately start singing some song that reflected his thankfulness at receiving this gratuity. He would also sometimes make eye contact with one or more diners and begin singing a song to the customer(s) he was focusing on. He was amazing. We continued to visit that restaurant for several more years, even after it moved into a large new location. The highlight of every visit, for us, was watching this man joyfully do a job that most people despise. I worked at an all-you-can-eat buffet restaurant for a grand total of three days in high school. I was a busboy. It was not a fun job. Yet, here was this man, who looked to be in his thirties, doing this job like it was the most fun he could possibly have.

"Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm." - Ralph Waldo Emerson

Throughout the course of my life, whenever I have seen a person doing an ordinary job in an extraordinary way, I have always taken note. My own father was an example of this. When he was working at the grocery store behind our house, he was not only friendly with customers, he became friends with the customers. He always had a smile, kind words, and a laugh for every person he encountered. When he walked his beat as a cop, he would bend down or take a knee to talk to children. He got to know all of the shop owners in our small downtown area and often did odd jobs for them on his days off. He helped the appliance store owner by delivering appliances. He repaired brass instruments for the owner of the music store. He worked the counter when the cobbler needed help. My father, who only became a police officer on a dare, did his job with enthusiasm and joy. His desire to help others led him to pick up a hitchhiker once during his shift on the police force. He asked this young man where he was going, and when the destination was in the next town, my father happily drove the man to that town and dropped him off. They enjoyed pleasant conversation during the course of the ride, and my father wished him well and drove back to our town. On his way back into town, during which he was well outside of the limits of his patrol area, he received a call about a store having been robbed, along with a description of the thief. That suspect was the man my father had just driven out of town and dropped off.

"Mister Tanner was a cleaner from a town in the Midwest.

And of all the cleaning shops around he'd made his the best.

But he also was a baritone who sang while hanging clothes.

He practiced scales while pressing tails and sang at local shows.

His friends and neighbors praised the voice that poured out from his throat.

They said that he should use his gift instead of cleaning coats."

- Harry Chapin, Mr. Tanner

During the early days of my teaching career, when we lived just outside of Charleston, we regularly shopped at a grocery store in which one of the butchers would regularly set up his cutting table out in the store itself instead of back in the normal room behind large windows where butchers would normally work. Then, he would begin working... and singing. This "singing butcher" would sing loudly for long periods of time while he worked, often drawing quite a crowd. He was always happy and enthusiastic. Here was another example of a person doing this ordinary job in a way that most people would never dream of doing it.

"But music was his life, it was not his livelihood,
and it made him feel so happy and it made him feel so good.
And he sang from his heart and he sang from his soul.
He did not know how well he sang; It just made him whole."
- Harry Chapin, Mr. Tanner

As I mentioned in a previous post, a few years ago we focused on the example of Seattle's Pike Place Fish Market in an in-service employee training seminar at work. We learned the four Fish! principles (Be There, Play, Make Their Day and Choose Your Attitude™), watched video of the employees at the market, and participated in a number of exercises and breakout sessions relating to this method of being exceptional at whatever you do.




Did everyone suddenly rush out and start singing as they performed their everyday tasks? Did everyone immediately start doing their jobs with enthusiasm? Of course not. Why? I believe there are several reasons. First, people are resistant to change. We have a tendency to continue doing whatever it is we are doing in exactly the same way we have always done it. To do anything different would be frightening to most of us. Second, many people have a lack of motivation to change. They don't believe that if they begin behaving in a certain way that they will start having fun at work. They don't see any reason to change, since the present system works adequately well.

The main reason, in my opinion, that most people tend to resist changes such as these is that, in combination with the above factors, we tend to behave the way we do because it is most in line with our personality. An introverted person will not suddenly become a gregarious example of extroversion just because of a few motivational sessions and videos at work. It just doesn't happen. Our personality is an outgrowth of not only the interior factors of our own personal tendencies and genetic make-up, it is also determined by our experiences through time. An individual can successfully modify their own personality, if they TRULY want to (or are otherwise sufficiently motivated), with great effort, over a period of time. Abrupt behavioral modifications are just not common and even gradual changes require great effort and desire.

"As simple as it sounds, we all must try to be the best person we can: by making the best choices, by making the most of the talents we've been given." - Mary Lou Retton

If it is so difficult and unlikely to affect this change, then why am I prattling on about it? Well, if one person were to read this and experiment, even for just one day, with conducting themselves at work, or just out in public, like at a restaurant next time you go out to eat, it would make the world a little bit more fun.

"We start out so open and spontaneous. We're real individuals. Then somewhere along the way we're drawn to conform." - Patch Adams

One of the best examples of this attitude in film, is Robin Williams' character in the movie Patch Adams. This character, who is based on a real person, was actually cited in his medical school files as suffering from "excessive happiness." I watched this film once again this morning and realized that a lot of the arguments that Dr. Walcott uses against "Patch" have been used against me. Walcott sees "Patch" as a threat because he approaches every day with enthusiasm and compassion. He genuinely loves people, and he loves helping them.

I was moved almost to tears during the scenes when Walcott tries to keep him from graduating and becoming a doctor. I had heard many of those same points recently used as criticism towards me.

"Because what you want is for us to get down there on the same level as our patients... to destroy objectivity... You don't fit in. There are standards and codes."
- Dr. Walcott, Patch Adams

When "Patch" is speaking at the hearing where the board is making the determination of whether or not he will be allowed to graduate, he defends his approach to medicine, and life, and his words echo my feelings.

"Now, I've sat in your schools and heard people lecture on transference... and professional distance. Transference is inevitable, sir. Every human being has an impact on another." - Patch Adams

Once again, when he is being addressed by the board, the words are eerily similar to things I have recently heard, as recently as the day I resigned.

"We find your methods less than appealing. along with your crass and disdainful behavior... you carry with you a flame..."

While my flame for being a professional educator may have been extinguished, my flame for life has not. I still love interacting with people. In my leadership seminars, I have always encouraged the prospective leaders to be exceptional in everything they do. I have told them about the busboy at the pizza place and the singing butcher. I have even told them stories of my father.

This past spring, I had another example to share with them. I went to the local theater a few months ago, and when I approached the concessions counter for some extremely overpriced soda and popcorn, because it's not a "real" movie experience without that stuff, I was waited on by a man named Don. I always try to speak to people who are wearing name tags using their name. I mean, otherwise why wear the tag, right? Don made working at a movie theater concession stand into a work of art. He was friendly and began establishing a rapport with me right away. We bantered back and forth. He commented on my Pink Floyd t-shirt (I get a lot of comments on that shirt). We joked about all sorts of things. I was almost late getting into the movie. Don made me happy to have to almost take out a second mortgage and arrange a payment plan for a soft drink and a bucket of popcorn.

“Enthusiasm is the leaping lightning, not to be measured by the horse-power of the understanding." - Ralph Waldo Emerson

The following week, I told the story of my encounter with Don during one of my leadership seminars. That afternoon, two of the students from my leadership seminar immediately drove directly to the theater, about 15 minutes away, to buy some overpriced concessions and meet Don. They weren't there to see a movie. They didn't even buy tickets to see a movie later in the week (which you can do now). They went simply to meet Don and experience his enthusiasm. He did not let them down. That afternoon, to promote a movie (which will go unnamed here), Don was dressed as a pirate. When they approached him, he immediately launched into a routine about looking for his lost parrot, speaking in the "pirate voice" the entire time (AAAAARRRRRRRR!!!!)

“The secret of genius is to carry the spirit of the child into old age, which means never losing your enthusiasm.” - Aldous Huxley

People like Don, and the others mentioned above, make life so much more fun. They bring joy into the lives of others in small, unexpected ways. Why not try it? Pick an opportunity and make someone's day. Have fun with them. Give them the opportunity to play. Provoke a smile and give them one of yours. Make a game out of it. It's like a little civil disobedience that can't get you into trouble (in most circumstances). Go for it, just once. What do you have to lose?

“Disobedience is the true foundation of liberty. The obedient must be slaves.” – Henry David Thoreau

"In my life I find that memories of the spirit linger and sweeten long after memories of the brain have faded."

Welcome back! I've been remodeling. As you can see, I've moved things around a bit, freshened things up, opened some windows and let some light into this place. Hopefully, it will be a bit easier on your tired eyes. I know... it even looks bigger in here. It's amazing when you choose the right color scheme how much brighter a place can look.

"Some of them were dreamers
And some of them were fools
Who were making plans and thinking of the future
With the energy of the innocent
They were gathering the tools..."
- Jackson Browne, Before the Deluge

Back in the summer of 1993, the world seemed so much simpler, for me at least. I was only a few months out of college and had gotten married at the beginning of the previous summer. We had been living in subsidized housing with jobs that paid only a pittance. My wife and I both spent the spring after my December graduation working for our college's education department. She was a secretary and I was an interviewer for the accreditation study that we were conducting. I also taught private clarinet lessons (clarinet was NOT my principal instrument and I barely considered myself proficient on it, but I have always had success teaching others how to play it well) and played in a rock band (Slightly Used), which cost a lot more than it paid, I promise.

As I've related previously, after much interviewing, wailing and gnashing of teeth, I secured a job most of the way across the state in a place neither of us had either lived previously. Also, neither of us had ever lived in a place so rural. Sure, my wife's family on her father's side had grown up in the country, as farmers, but we were both children of the suburbs.

"Let me tell y'all what it's like
Being male, middle-class and white."
- Ben Folds, Rockin' the Suburbs

We soon found ourselves living in a small town in the middle of a rural area. The school where I was going to be teaching was in a part of the county about 15 miles north with extremely high poverty and few other white faces. In the tiny town where the school was located, the white people that could, sent their children across the attendance lines to a predominantly white school in the next town, or to private school. I have never considered myself prejudiced, but I had never been seen as a minority before. The school was functioning under a recent court order to desegregate... in the 1990's... in America. They were under a requirement to hire a certain percentage of white teachers and staff and curb the problem of students crossing attendance lines. The school was short on funds and the building was in terrible shape, having once been the town's "colored" school in the days of "separate but equal" in which separate seemed to still be the case, while equal definitely wasn't.

When I moved into the band room, I noticed that the carpet was lime green shag. It was in a building all by itself at the rear of the campus, with no windows and, for most of my three years there, no air conditioning. It was like working, living, in a brick oven. We had no band uniforms. There hadn't been more than a half-dozen students in the band program for the past four years. The "music" they made on that first day made the inaugural notes of Mr. Holland's band sound like a symphony of angels.

"Playing music is supposed to be fun. It's about heart, it's about feelings, moving people, and something beautiful, and it's not about notes on a page." - Glenn Holland, Mr. Holland's Opus

When I received my class rosters a few days before the school year started, I couldn't believe my eyes. I would be teaching two middle school band classes and a high school band class. I would also be responsible for teaching the middle school band students physical education. The thing that astounded me was that the classes were nearly empty. They really weren't kidding. I had never done this before and I was going to be responsible for making the numbers grow from the six students on my class rosters to a musical ensemble that could give a Christmas concert for the student body in... what? Only about five months. Before that however, I was supposed to start putting together a marching band to perform in the stands at football games (thankfully, I would not be required to give halftime performances that school year... no field show). I had work to do.

“There's a time when a man needs to fight and a time when he needs to accept that his destiny's lost, the ship has sailed and that only a fool will continue. The truth is I've always been a fool.” – Ed Bloom, Big Fish

I started by looking at only a small group of select sixth grade students to be considered for admission into the seventh grade band class as beginners. No recruiting had been done, and it was not an easy task, since being in the band had an even worse, by far, stigma at this school than it does at most schools. I managed to recruit two sixth graders, one on trumpet and one on saxophone. Since the program was so small, my performances would have to combine all students of all ability levels, from these raw beginners, up to the more experienced high school students. While I was recruiting these sixth graders, I also began combing the classrooms of both the middle school and the high school, looking for students who had dropped out of band, or had been members of the band at a previous school. I managed to find a number of these students and convince some of them to join my band. I lured them into an open house in the band room with an instrument repair technician, since many of their instruments hadn't been played in years, and most were handed down... what the technician called M'uncle horns ("Son, where'd you get that horn?" "M'uncle played it."), and most importantly, my open house featured something no self-respecting teen or pre-teen could turn down... free food.

Soon, my band had grown to over thirty mostly warm bodies, including the high school principal's son, a member of the varsity football team, two cheerleaders, and a talented tuba player who had transferred in from another school. It was time for my first marching band practice. I rounded them up on the football field and began showing them proper marching techniques, just like I had been taught when I was in high school. They stared. They started laughing. The tuba player was helping me demonstrate. The principal's son was trying to get his fellow students to give it a try. It wasn't working. In less than thirty minutes, the "rehearsal" turned into a rout. Only a few students were still present. The rest marched straight to the principal's office demanding that this "crazy white man" be fired and replaced with a proper "black" band director. He left no uncertainty when he told them that the next practice I held, they had better be there doing exactly as I told them to do.

I was young, persistent, resilient. As Paul, the school's softball coach and as time passed, one of my closest friends during those years, soon taught me, "Not everyone's gonna want what you have to offer." He also taught me that "life sucks, grab a helmet."

I begged. I cajoled. I struggled. I gave every ounce of everything I had to get that program started. The principal got a former band director friend of his to put together an alumni band to "drum up" (pun intended) community support for the band program. I contacted the city newspaper in the nearest large city of Charleston and got a reporter to make the drive up to the school, about an hour away, to see the band rehearse. I chose an indoor music rehearsal, and the only song they knew how to play, "Under the Sea" from Disney's The Little Mermaid. My sense of humor and my rapport with the students quickly captured the reporter's attention. Since that ill-fated practice, we had begun to bond and work towards a common goal. One of my favorite quotes from that article was when I stopped the rehearsal for a moment, wiped my brow and said, "We need saxophones." One of my trumpet players quickly retorted, "We need Jesus!"

"Now let the music keep our spirits high
And let the buildings keep our children dry
Let creation reveal its secrets by and by
When the light that's lost within us reaches the sky."
- Jackson Browne, Before the Deluge

Not too far into the football season, we had a band that could perform a few simple tunes in the bleachers during football games. I bought used uniforms from a school halfway across the state and drove the school's battered activity van all the way there to pick them up. My wife carefully ironed patches over the other school's name on every single uniform. We both worked incredibly hard. By the afternoon of the homecoming game, I passed out on the floor of my office's private restroom. The hours were grueling. We gave everything. We developed pride... and discipline.

In late October I took the band on a long bus ride to the Lower State Marching Championships, the equivalent of a semi-final round, for high schools our size. I told them before we got off the bus that we were there to watch and learn. I looked around that bus and told them that we would be returning the following year... to compete. As they watched the bands march across the field, they were incredulous. Most of them had never been to a marching band competition before. They couldn't believe what they were seeing. They couldn't believe that these bands were using the same fundamentals, the same marching style I had been teaching them, and were putting together these amazing productions, almost theatrical. They couldn't believe the pageantry and discipline on display. As we boarded the bus for the long drive home that night, several students told me that there was no way we would be ready to do that in only a year.

"A teacher has two jobs; fill young minds with knowledge, yes, but more important, give those minds a compass so that that knowledge doesn't go to waste." - Principal Jacobs, Mr. Holland's Opus

As a matter of fact, that next week, one of my talented clarinet players, also a cheerleader, was overheard talking about our band in a very negative light at her lunch table one day. In class, I stopped rehearsal a few minutes early. I talked to them about how negatively we were already viewed by the rest of the school. I talked about how difficult it was to change that image when the members of our own organization were championing those negative views to their peers. I singled out the clarinet player in front of the class. It was silent. I told her how much it broke my heart that all the effort I gave, all the effort her fellow band members gave, was nothing to her. How could she talk about the band this way, I asked, now with eyes growing a little moist. She tried to argue. She tried to defend what she had done. I pointed out how it just made her look ridiculous, giving so much time and effort to this organization that she was putting down to her non-musical friends. I will never forget the speech, the impassioned plea I uttered that day. I can recount it, hear it in my mind like it was yesterday, instead of fourteen years past. "Give me one year" I begged her. "One year... If in one year, you feel ashamed to be a part of this band, then I will personally tell your mother that she needs to let you quit. Give me one year. If you still feel ashamed to have me as your band director, then I will quit. I will go do something else. Give me one year."

Kelly agreed. She told me that she would give me one year. There wasn't a dry eye in the room. We shook on it. One year.

When other bands ended their marching band practices for the year to practice for concert band performances and other engagements, we continued to have at least an hour of marching band practice three days a week, every week, in addition to our concert rehearsals. The next year, we marched at football games. We had a 32 person marching band and performed The Hits of Mariah Carey as our halftime show. I wrote the marching drill myself, in what was to become an annual tradition for the next twelve years after that first show. Yes, we did march in the 1994 Lower State Marching Band Championships. We finished dead last, but we performed. Kelly stayed with the band. She was never caught ridiculing band again. The next year, my third year at that school and the final year it was open, Kelly was one of the drum majors of the band. She stood on a podium at football games and competitions while the entire school watched her conduct the band... HER band.

"You love music and you made the kids love it with you." - Rowena Morgan, Mr. Holland's Opus

I have taught hundreds of students since that first year, but I will never forget that first group. I can see the faces and hear the names. I'm sure I learned at least as much from them as they learned from me. Actually, I'm pretty sure I learned much more than they did.

Yesterday, I noticed that the high school of a beautiful, small rural town nearby, a town we lived in and loved for the first five years I worked at the job I just left, is looking for a band director. My mind drifted back to the memories of my first teaching job... to those first students... to the simplicity of that life. I thought about how difficult that job seemed at the time, but how I also knew there was no way I could fail. I thought about how easy it had been to give everything, every ounce of my life, to that job, and to loving those kids. Then I snapped back into the present, mind once again joined to body and firmly planted in reality. Things which seem effortless at age 23 are not the same at age 37. I realized that, while I have the fond memories of those first years of teaching, I am now also fully aware of the cost. As the title, from the movie My Dog Skip, implies, I also know that I view those early days through the hazy lens of memory and the softening filter of time.

"I'm not sure all these people understand
It's not like years ago..."
- R.E.M., Nightswimming

The thought of rebuilding that band program, while exciting, fills me with feelings that are not welcome. Having to fight tooth and nail for every inch of ground the program gains is immensely rewarding, but physically and emotionally draining. The idea of establishing relationships with dozens of students, parents and teachers I have never met before and working tirelessly to gain their support would be a harrowing experience at this point in my life. I discovered that I'm just not interested. That is simply not what I am anymore. It is a part of who I am, just as anything I have ever experienced has shaped me, but I am content to savor my memories and leave this opportunity to someone else, hopefully someone who is just starting their journey, to create their own. I hope theirs are filled with joys and sorrows, sweetness and pain, just like mine.

"Some of them knew pleasure
And some of them knew pain
And for some of them it was only the moment that mattered
And on the brave and crazy wings of youth
They went flying around in the rain
And their feathers, once so fine, grew torn and tattered
And in the end they traded their tired wings
For the resignation that living brings
And exchanged love's bright and fragile glow
For the glitter and the rouge
And in the moment they were swept before the deluge."
- Jackson Browne, Before the Deluge