Busy Unpleasant Business...

 Been rough couple of weeks around here, but life keeps going.  

From the top, no, the new job is still doing great.  I am settling into the role and getting back to comfortable with the process.  It's a little bit different than I had done for the previous seven years, but it works.  And the company is a good one, with great people.  I'm extremely fortunate in that regard.  

In other areas, no, we haven't made it back out to the Renaissance Festival after our first visit two weeks ago.  And the chances don't look good, thanks to yours truly, doing stupid stuff again.

There were also two losses that felt pretty big, to me.  I'm not going to share the names, because through most of the world, they will mean nothing.   To me, they were quite important people in small segments of my life.  The first was a high school associate, someone I knew, could say "hey, how's it going?" to him and get a grin and a response.  The other was a friend of my father's, one who had known him for quite some time, and had become successful enough to help my father in a way that opened my eyes.

The first fellow was a musician.  I'm not a musician by any sense of the word.  I enjoyed making music, I did do well while in High School, in those few direct competition/evaluation events, in smaller groups, and in large ones.  This fellow was in a whole different world.  I'd seen him sit down at a piano, and ... well, he wasn't just the piano player, he was a performer.  Like all great performers, he enjoyed his chances which I got to see.  Which were quite a few.  

In high school, I was involved with band, but had many friends in choir.  Many of the people who have musical talents did both.  Few did it very well.  One of my closest friends did, but his talent was exceptional.  And he had an older brother who was also talented.  And the friend who died was a classmate of my friend's older brother.

Both my friend and his older brother were members of our school's singing group that I've heard called "show choirs" - a small ensemble of talented performers who sang, did choreography, and entertained.  So was the fellow who died.  At my high school, the group was known as The Minnesingers.  I've no idea where the name came from, it was just there when I hit high school.  And I still recall, to this day, my first opportunity to see them perform at a sort of peer level.

Which is where I need to do a rather major digression, but that's me.  In my home, growing up, we had lots of music.  My father enjoyed playing this incredibly complex "Organ" - an electric keyboard which had keys and a number of buttons to play complete chords.  The record player had lots of show tunes and old big-band records.  My father had, at some point when he was younger, taken up the trumpet, too.  Not too unusual, I suppose, because he was a younger kid in a family full of girls (thank God I was first born), but they also attended the same high school he, and I (41 years later) graduated from.  

One of the historical groups that had existed at our high school was an all-female marching drum and bugle corps.  Perhaps my dad wanted to join, or just enjoyed playing.  Either way, we had lots of music.  And the bug bit me hard, unfortunately.  I say "unfortunately" because I was a bit of a fool and when some fellow came through our classroom demonstrating the accordion and offering lessons, I went home with a brochure.  Thank God my parents said "no".  Had they shown the same wisdom when the Orchestra showed up and I wanted to learn the Bass, but was talked down to the Cello, well...  Beyond Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, I did not progress with that instrument.  Fortunately, the rented Cello was easy to return.   Not entirely sure what happened with the bow (that was bought) but where ever it is it's better off than it would have been had I continued to pursue that instrument.  I wasn't much of a "melody only" band/orchestra member.

So when, in fourth grade, the band kids strolled into the classroom, my interest was again awakened.  Somehow I convinced my folks that percussion would be best for me.  And shortly after that, we also acquired an upright piano.  Which is a percussion instrument.  But that's a smaller part.  The bigger part is the community.  I went to a small grade school - we had 8 years, first through 8th Grade, but only about 30 kids per class.  They varied year from year, but when I entered first grade, there were about twenty-five other kids who, on a June night in 1978, graduated together with about a dozen additions.  Through the years we had kids who moved in and out, none larger than the big change between 6th and 7th grade.  

My Grade School was a small Catholic grade school attached to a relatively new parish in a town that had somewhat historically been anti-Catholic.  That was slowly changing due to the school, across the street from the Public elementary school.  And a lot of outreach from the parish, things like festivals and other events, including Bouja - but that's a whole other story.

My elementary school was considered "rural" because there were very few kids who had families who lived in Sartell - most of us were from outside town.  One classmate's family lived right next door to the school, which made them able to go home for lunch, if they wished.  And if their mother wasn't already at school working the lunch room, keeping order.

When "The Band Kids" came in, they were from my school, but they weren't the only kids in the band.  Nearby St. Cloud held about a dozen different parishes, with some also having or sharing schools.  This healthy feeder program fed Cathedral High School for everything from sports to arts.  There were other handicaps, however.

At the time, and still true today, St. Cloud has three major high schools.  Technical High School, known as "Tech" was near downtown, my mother's alma mater, and had focused more on trade skills.  It had become a standard high school course of study, and was about three times the size of my high school.  Some 400+ kids each year graduated from Tech, and we got to know some of them.  My high school had a "shared time" program where we could sign up for certain classes our school couldn't offer.  Many of them were shop classes, some were science classes with more hands-on experiences.  The one I did get to take was Photography, where I learned how to take 35mm black-and-white photos, develop the film, and make the prints.  

Which I am sure thrilled my dad, who was a semi-professional photographer.  He had done significant amounts of product photography, but did other things with his cameras.  He had also, for a few years, been in a partnership with someone in town who owned  photography shop.  He had done many of those things, and enjoyed hearing about my experiences.  

But Cathedral and Tech were small schools when compared with Apollo.  The school was much larger, newer, and thus more popular.  With graduating classes of 600-800 students each year, there were far more Apollo alumni.  Though it was odd to note, when I was in High School, that my school was the only one representing our town to all of these other festivals in parades.  It was what it was.  

But back to music - my band time consisted of a once-a-week trip into St. Cloud after school, where we'd have Band Practice.  In 5th grade we started in "Beginning Band" and learned the basics, with 3 concerts a year.  Then we moved on after your first year to three years in "Cadet Band".  And if you were still involved in band in 9th Grade, you could meet with the band director over the summer and try out for Concert Band - some did - or just roll right into "Varsity Band".  For the first two years of my high school, I would get to go to band, every day, in the afternoon.  My high school was using a "six day cycle" which meant that Monday wasn't Monday.  The schedule typically was an "every-other-day" type.  You had your even days or your odd days for some classes.  Others were every day, almost always at the same time. 

So when you got your first year of Varsity band, that was the only "credit" you got towards graduation.  Your second year was a "well, it's nice you're here, but don't forget the other stuff."  Unless you auditioned for Concert Band - that was the big deal.  And that was where I went after my sophomore year.

But I'm a bit ahead of my story.  When it came to making time to try out for concert band, you either did it during the school year, if you were an existing student, or you showed up early for Marching Band practice during the early summer, and tried out for the band director then.  So when I ran into one of my school friends after church one Saturday evening in the early summer of 1978, he told me all about marching band practice.  And I was in. 

The first night I knew of practice, Dad wasn't going to be home in time.  So I hopped on my bike and rode the 10 1/2 miles into town, to the school, to get to Band Practice.  I walked into the building, introduced myself to the band director whom I'd seen at our concerts, and she called over another student.  She told the other student to introduce me to her brother.  He was the Section Chair for percussion.  

I got introduced to him, and he suggested I strap on the "small bass drum" and he'd see if I could handle it.  I would walk the route next to the other bass drummer, and do what he did - which, to start with, was stay in step and in position.  Which meant stay in line directly behind the drummer in front of me, and all of the other people.  But I best did that by also glancing to my left and right - not by turning my head, but by checking my "diagonals" - those angles meant I was in the right spot, if everything lined up.

After a few blocks, it was second nature.  I started listening to the music and figuring it out.  But there's the rub.  I was an incoming freshman.  Also known as a "Frosh".  I'd heard stories, for years, about how the upperclassmen could "abuse" the frosh.  I'd heard stories about it when I was in 7th grade, as my grade school had a program with the local Sartell High School where we'd spend the first two hours of the day there.  In 7th grade, our days were started with Music or phy ed, and the second hour was Life Science.  After the first semester, we swapped out Music for Art.  In 8th grade, we pretty well split down gender lines - every boy in the class was in Shop, which was Wood Shop, first quarter, Metal Shop second quarter, Electrical/Electronics shop third quarter, and drafting the final quarter.  And our shop teacher had been our 7th grade teacher and football coach the previous year, so there were quite a few of us who slipped and called him "Coach" more than once.  Our second hour of 8th grade was either phy ed or a year-long health class.

I heard of freshmen at Sartell being required to wear underwear OUTSIDE their pants, other clothing, or all sorts of other things.  I was terrified, because moving from my more rural school area to "town" I figured those kids would have some extreme tortures.  And there I was, being introduced to a Senior, a fairly well-known fellow, from the greetings of his classmates as we went through Marching Band practice.  So I'd come to the attention of one of them.  I was worried.

Until one of the first days of school, they directed all of the freshmen class into the school's auditorium for a few things - directions on how things got done, and some performances by some school groups.  After the business stuff, they brought out the Minnesingers - and my Senior associate and percussion Section Leader was a member.  I still, to this day, can't hear "Smoke From A Distant Fire" by the Sanford Townsend band without remembering the plaid colors of their shirts.  The guys wore pants, the girls wore skirts, and the performance was a little mind-blowing.  It was the first time in my life that I recalled looking at someone and thinking "so, in a couple of years, this will be me, an adult."  Well, I was never quite so well put-together as they were, but yeah, I got older.

Which was something that really worried me until a little later that day, at lunch, I saw my friend the section leader.  I knew better than to call to him or embarrass him in front of his friends...  So when he said hello and called me over, I was shocked, and in fear.  

He introduced me around the table, and I realized that I'd heard many of those last names, from my father.  He grew up less than a mile from the high school, so it was really a small world.  I said hello to all of them and then said "don't worry, I won't wave at you guys in the hall.  I'm a freshman."  The laughter was pretty loud, and one of them said "don't worry about it, we can handle it."  Then my section leader friend asked me if anyone had tried to pick on me.  I said "not that I've noticed yet."  He said "anyone tries, you tell them you're my friend.  Use my name."  I only did it twice.  A few days later I was one of three freshmen who were going to be racing across the lunch room - in rolling trash cans.  We'd ride.  Until I said "[X] told me to let him know if anyone did anything to me."  All three of us were let off, I was the only one in band.

But that was the level of respect shown to my friend, and, I learned later, to many of the kids in the school who excelled in and performed in various music and artistic endeavors.  I don't think I ever rose to that level, but do recall being told, years later, that I had made my way through school and some kids thought me a decent humanoid.  So there's that.  By about twenty minutes into my freshman year, I'd decided that while terrorizing Frosh might be fun for some people, it wasn't for me.  And I'd be the guy the percussion section leader had been for me. 

So the fellow who passed away from my high school had been the piano player for the Minnesingers, amongst other performing groups, organized and otherwise - and he was just great - extremely talented and a great guy.  We had lost touch for many years, but recently I found him on Facebook, and friended him.  He died a few weeks later.  

The other death, of one of my father's childhood friends, brought out many memories of Dad and his experience writing his Pan book.  I'd had the chance to go see him with Dad a few times, and it was always cool.  But so was he.  

Movnig onward, the other huge hit this past week was my apparently kinked urethra.  Yeah, which is why I now have a catheter.  The less said about that, the less I focus on my discomfort.  Which is incredible.

Which also brings me to the final hit.  Which is minor, yet not so much.

Many years ago my father came home from work with a catalog that he kept laughing over.  I got a chance to look through, and the writing was, well, not for a catalog.  It was funny, plenty of word play, and some cool things.  Some just plain weird stuff, but some cool stuff.  Which Dad did end up ordering from, once in a while.  American Science & Surplus, or AS&S, is, or when you read this, it will be was.  

My family has a long history of weird behavior.  Like my uncle who pranked his neighbor with a satellite crash into his yard back in the early 1960s.  So I was drawn to any place that had weird stuff.  I got inspired.  Doubly so by the AS&S crew, catalogs, and other things.  We would get a catalog, pour through it, and laugh out loud at some of the items.  

When Dad passed away, the internet was a going concern, but it took me a few years (I had kids) to remember the name, look them up, and get on their mailing list.  It was just wonderful to see them continue in the same vein.  Weird, goofy, unusual, but if I ever needed a Czechoslovakian Military helmet, an East German Mess Kit, a box full of random magnifying lenses, or any other weird toy or gadget, I knew where to go.  

So yeah, in addition to mourning the end of summer (a little bit) and everything else, at least I've been slowed down.  Movement wise, anyway.  And I try to stay distracted from this thing attached to me.  It's not the first time I've had a medical device attached, but certainly the most invasive...