Personal experience

“Tell My Father”

Leave a Comment / High Schools, Music Department, Personal experience, Show Choir, Solo Prep, Teaching Music /

Son David sang this solo in several show choir solo competitions his senior year in high school (2001). It is an emotional solo from the musical “Civil War” about a son asking someone to “Tell My Father” about his death on the battlefield.

To increase the impact, David borrowed a reenactor Civil War uniform. He wouldn’t let me hear the song until he performed it.  I remember the first time I saw him walk toward the competition room, in “full uniform”….he walked, pridefully, in total character and ignoring stares from other students in the hallways. Dressing in ‘costume’ was not a common thing for solos.

And the first time he walked on stage, he confidently and effectively commanded audience reverence and respect. Each time he finished, it felt like there was an ever so slight gap, prior to applause, where the audience was wiping tears and unsure if applause was appropriate, especially after the final line.

After one of his performances, I heard a couple girls from another school talking in the hallway:

“I just heard this guy dressed in a Civil War uniform sing a song to his father and it made me cry.”

It made me, David’s father, cry every time.

Here are the lyrics:

Tell my father that his son
Didn’t run or surrender
That I bore his name with pride
As I tried to remember
You are judged by what you do
While passing through

As I rest ‘neath fields of green
Let him lean on your shoulder
Tell him how I spent my youth
So the truth could grow older
Tell my father, when you can
I was a man

Tell him we will meet again
Where the angels learn to fly
Tell him we will meet as men
For with honour did I die

Tell him I wore the blue
Proud and true, through the fire
Tell my father so he’ll know
I love him so

Tell him how I wore the blue
Just the way that he taught me
Tell my father not to cry
Then say goodbye

 

https://youtu.be/IJsOtK-DSmI

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How do I get it back?

Communication, News and Happenings, Personal experience, Social Media /

 

C’mon #Facebook. I’ve had this account for nearly 20yrs. Someone hacks and does something bad and my account is suspended, disabled and I have zero way to communicate.

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The time I was surrounded by bank security

College Prep, Personal experience /

For three years of my undergrad Music Education study at the University of Kentucky, I rented one of five rooms the elderly landlady rented to college boys. Part of our rental agreement was that we would perform one task with her per month. That could be anything from driving her somewhere to assisting with her Christmas Cards.

Life at the Dagley house included an education UK could not match. She adjusted forever my dialect, diction, grammar and vocabulary.  I uncomfortably experienced how the élite deal with the ordinary, picked up breadcrumbs of how the rich keep, manage and spend money and cringed at her political prejudice and unapologetic racism.

This story is about one of those errands when I took her to the bank.

She wanted to “cash” a check. She didn’t specify why….just handed me a money bag and an envelope for the teller. Imagine…. a college student approaching a bank teller with a nearly blind senior citizen woman, and handing the teller an envelope containing a check, a note to “cash it” with specific instructions of how many of each denomination – and a money bag. I was unaware of the amount of the check until the teller summoned security, which quickly, but politely, positioned around us. Can you say awkward moment? The exchange with the teller went something like this:

Teller: “Ma’am, are you sure you want to cash this….all of this?”

Dagley: “What does the note say?”

Teller: “Yes ma’am, but are you aware of the amount you are asking for?”

Dagley: “You mean the amount for which I am asking? (She was always correcting grammar and pronunciation). Is there confusion about the amount?”

I was not surprised that they were questioning her writing, especially if she wrote it out herself. More probable is that her attorney, a frequent visitor, wrote the check, and that her signature was all over it. When signing things, she would ask us to place the pen in the general area. Her signature was huge and never went in the intended direction.

Teller: Are you sure you have the right number of zeros?

Dagley: How many zeros do you see?

Teller: Ma’am that is ten thousand dollars.

Dagley: “Yes, it is. It is in my account and I want you to put it in this bag.”

Bank officer w/Security: “Miss Dagley, may we have a word with you?”

Dagley: “No. You may not. This is a simple transaction and I want you to complete it NOW.”

I never knew what she did with that $10,000 in cash.

This and more stories about My College Years with an Old Opera Singer HERE.

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I know exactly when and where I decided I wanted to be a band director

Leave a Comment / College Prep, Personal experience, Teaching, Teaching Music /

Read article HERE

 

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Virginia Beach Music Festival and the 3rd Floor Balcony

2 Comments / High Schools, Marching Band, Personal experience, Storytelling, Throw Back Thursday /

The Virginia Beach Music Festival was a multi-day event that included competitions in Marching, Concert, Parade, Jazz, and Inspection. 

Normally a band year has multiple seasons. Summer and Fall are mostly Marching Band. Some competitions included an inspection element, which included standing at attention for about 15 minutes while someone went through with white gloves and inspected selected instruments and uniforms. Marching season transitions into Concert Band — and Jazz Band starts up. Late Spring and early Summer is parade season. 

To prepare for Virginia Beach, all that had to be going on simultaneously. 

During school, the concert band would rehearse. Jazz Band was after school and evenings were a combination of marching, parade and inspection practice.

The campus had a long driveway that we used, but would often go through a couple of the neighborhood blocks. Inspections involved Copenhaver’s paddle. We would stand at attention and he would walk in front of us, stopping to stare and to grab and check instruments. If anything was wrong, he’d say, “That’s one”, which meant he would get you with the paddle when he got behind you, which could be several minutes later. And if you moved when he whacked you, guess what. Right. I never got the paddle. 

The first time Holmes participated in 1969, (my Freshman year) Holmes was Grand Champion. We returned in 1970 as “Honor Band” for the event. 

Director Copenhaver was from Virginia and our two Greyhound busses stoped at a park near his hometown for a community-provided picnic. I remember one of the busses got stuck crossing a small creek. 

Two memorable events at the hotel we used. First, was one evening during the week when Mr. Copenhaver was in the parking lot and looked up at many of us on the balconies and said, 

“They know we’re here.”

Other than when actually winning an event, it was the happiest I recall him looking and sounding. 

The other was an evening when a group of seniors came knocking on our door. I was in a room with three other freshmen boys. They were there for “initiation”, which normally included some combination of ice down the underwear with shaving cream there and everywhere else — and then locked out of the room. 

The four of us (I think we all four), went over the balcony. The floors were close enough together that we could go from floor to floor…. Until we could jump to the ground. 

I can’t believe I did that. 

But I never experienced “initiation”. And I never did that to anyone else.

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Student loan defaulters

College Prep, Communication, Family, Job Search, News and Happenings, Personal experience, Social Media /

Bank withdrawalI just watched a podcast showing numerous student loan defaulters who consider themselves “under-employed” and carrying “unsustainable loans”, complaining about the prospect of having to pay them back after years of covid and other reasons for repayment pauses.

I responded. Hard-hearted? Or real? Tell me what you think (nicely, please).

“I went to a state university because I couldn’t afford a top-tier private school. I had some scholarships, but also worked at least one job every semester and accepted financial aid via work-study and loans. With my degree, I got the job I studied for, struggled a few early years to repay my loan, and continued with life.

Current trends are to borrow immoderate amounts for over-priced private, name-brand schools, bypassing the more moderately priced options, to get a useless degree or one that offers low potential for justifying the price or the loan incurred.

With an attitude and degree no business wants to pay for, they accept lower wage jobs and spend what they should be setting aside for their loan obligation to get tatted, buy the fancy new car, best phone, gaming, credit card debt and party life. And then they want ME to subsidize their lifestyle so they don’t have to pay their debt. All four of my family went to college. Three involved loans. All paid back. Pardon my insensitivity.”

Increasingly, hs graduates are opting to learn high-paying trades or going into the military, which offers opportunities to learn, study, and gain financially — with stability. Those are wise decisions in the current environment.

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