Mem'ries, in the Corner Of My Mind...

This was a fantastic weekend. True, it wasn't one of the nice, extended ones many of you got to enjoy (lucky bastards), as I had to go to work at the office on Friday and Blockbuster Friday & Saturday. There were, however, enough "moments" that will stick in my mind forever to make it rank right up there in the "holiday memories" subfolder in the hard drive of my mind.

Thanksgiving went great. Aside from my mom skipping out on the family holiday (again) at my in-laws' house, it went as smooth as any holiday I can remember. We woke up a bit later than an average day, watched the parade in TV, got the food made, car packed, and hit the road in plenty of time. We spent the afternoon playing board games and chatting with family, had a Thanksgiving dinner that couldn't be beat (Officer Obie not included), I managed to sneak in a turkey-induced nap, and we lazed around the house until finally packing the car up and heading home. Nothing remarkable, nothing crazy, no mad dashes. Absolutely perfect.

Black Friday was all about the paycheck. After making a quick stop by the comic shop to check out Chris's specials, I spent the day at work in the office. It...was...dulllllll. No point in calling up clients, as they would all (theoretically) be to insane with customers to bother with sales calls. Not many clients calling in for the same reason. I did get a couple orders that made it worth my while to go in, though, and had a few nice chats with my coworkers.

From there, I headed to work at Blockbuster. Crazy insane busy, The District Manager popped in for a vistit, necessitating much straightening up and flying right, and I didn't get home till about 10:30.

Saturday morning, my wife and son had a parade to do with the unicycle troop. That left my daughter and me to ourselves for the day. After the initial flurry of activity to get the wife and boy out the door (they woke up late), my baby girl crawled into bed with me and snuggled with me, giggling and poking my nose until I woke up. After I got showered and dressed, we spent the next hour or so making my great-grandmother's recipe for chocolate-peanut butter fudge. I measured, she poured. We stirred, laughed, tasted, snatched chocolate chips, and had a wonderful time.

After pouring the fudge into a pan to set, we sat and watched a movie on the couch, all the while she snuggled under my arm. As the time ticked by and the other half of my family was still MIA, we finally figured it was time for lunch. We were missing one ingredient from anything I could think of, so we got in the car and headed to Taco Bell. We sat in the dining room, eating, goofing around, and truly enjoying each others' company. About this point, my precious 5-year-old baby girl said, "Daddy, I'll always hug you - even when I'm a teenager."

Fudge makings - $6
Lunch at Taco Bell - $7
A day with my daughter I'll never forget - Priceless.

Remembering Old Friends...

Yesterday I went to the "Gift of Life Celebration" (AKA memorial service) for Jason Michael Bradley. It was a bit of a sobering experience. I got to hear about and understand my friend more than I had considered.

I had helped his sister, Sarah, a bit by scanning a few of Jason's old pictures to have them available for the family and to present in a slideshow for the reception following the service. We met over coffee and perused my MP3 collection to come up with an appropriate soundtrack. An hour and a half of music, and we hadn't even gotten through the 'R's in my pop/rock folder yet. Sonya spent about 11 hours and was up until 8:30 in the morning arranging them all and setting them to appropriate songs (cussing at my laptop the whole time for not working the way she expected it to).

The testimonies provided by his family, friends, even our old choir director Rick Hartsoe, gave a greater insight to the man I knew, and all of it confirmed what I had known about Jason for years: that Jason was all about love and joy. Here is a man that lived more in 29 years than most could in a century. He had seen more of the country by the time he was 25 than most would see in their lifetime, yet he still had the time to make everyone in his life feel like the most important person in the world. No one could recall a single harsh word or emotion from him. This big teddy bear of a guy embodied unconditional love - and it was felt by everyone there.

My writings aren't usually this disjunct, but it would take me days to compile and organize my thoughts on this event and my subsequent feelings about Jay. Suffice it to say, the service wasn't sorrowful or regretful. One always regards the death of someone so young as a tragedy and with a certain amount of regret, but with Jay, there was none. Tear, yes, but not regret. He lived an AMAZINGLY full life and blessed absolutely everyone whose life he touched. So much so, that rather than focusing on what might have been, everyone was focused on how grateful they were to have known him at all.

Everyone's familiar with the concept of "Pay It Forward" by now. Well, jay was the impetus for more kindness, love, and smiles paid forward than most anyone I can think of. He inspired everyone he knew to be cheerful, helpful, and loving.

The world is more indebted to Jason Michael Bradley that it will ever realize...

Today, I lost a Mentor...

It's funny how little you may recognize or appreciate how important someone can be to the greater plan of your life – even when it's perfectly obvious to everyone else.

Dick Perkins was not a warm & fuzzy kind of man. As my high school band director, he was very proper, professional, and extremely dedicated to his work. Our relationship never went beyond teacher-student to become respected colleagues, as I had hoped. Even as I became a music educator myself, he was just one of those teachers, no matter how adult you get, you could never call by his first name to his face. He would always be Mr. Perkins.

I would see him at marching band and drum corps shows fairly regularly after I had graduated and gone on to instruct, myself. We would make eye contact, walk up and say hi, we would banter briefly about this band's woodwinds, that corps' guard or what some classmate of mine/former student of his is doing what nowadays. Our conversations were always brief, good-natured, but awkward and uncomfortable. I always felt like such an amateur talking music to him, like a 3^rd grader talking to a physics professor about how well he knows his multiplication tables. Eventually, I tended to avoid going out of my way to say hi when I would see him at shows to avoid the awkwardness.

I'm bitterly regretful of that now…

Today I received a call from Ralph Biggs. I hardly ever hear from Ralph anymore. I could almost sense what was coming.

Richard H. Perkins died this morning in a hospice of a rare brain disease, as I understand. He went peacefully in his sleep. He had suffered what was originally thought a stroke several weeks ago, and his health had been failing since.

I had just seen him at the DCI Quarterfinals broadcast last August, looking fit as the proverbial fiddle, and exchanged a few awkward sentences.

Of course, it was a great disappointment to me when I heard the news, but to be honest, I didn't feel particularly sad. I was at work, distracted with a million different tasks, thoughts of the coming holiday, and basically shrugged it off with the feeling of, "that's a darned shame."

Later, after grabbing some pizza and inviting our friend, Leigh, whom we were in the band with, I dragged out some old cassettes of our band concerts. We listened through pieces like Holst's "First Suite", some show tune medleys, and such, and toasted him with Jolt Cola (the favorite drink for 7am marching band rehearsal in 1990). Then a lush, gorgeous arrangement of "Danny Boy", played with depth and dynamics rarely heard in a high school group, wafted through the living room. I imagined Mr. Perkins waving his baton in front of me on the podium as I played…and I cried. I finally realized what I had lost. I had lost one of my greatest mentors.

I have always attributed my interest in music and my desire to pursue music education as a career to several teachers in my life, often giving more credit to the ones that used the style of teaching I wanted to emulate: the slightly off-the-wall, exuberance and energy that is magnetic and inspires the same energy in others. Richard Perkins was not one of those teachers.

Richard Perkins was the kind of teacher that didn't need any of that. He inspired great performance and learning by an exceeding love and knowledge of music. Most importantly, however, he never underestimated the talent of his students. He would pull out class AA music for a band of 50 high school kids and have them playing it every bit as well as a university level symphony band. He taught theory, history, multiculturalism, and balanced it all with an unrivaled diversity of repertoire that expanded every student's musical horizons.

I suppose I never appreciated it much, even recently, because it was a standard I felt I could never live up to. Cracking jokes, getting excited, and being a cheerleader to get kids to work – that I can do. But having the kind of depth of knowledge of music and skill and/or knowledge of every instrument, music history and theory, let alone the work ethic to be able to fit it into virtually every lesson plan – that, I feared, I could NEVER do.

And so I distanced myself from him. Not intentionally, but I let his legacy and the greater lessons of his example slip lower in priority in my professional memory. I focused my attention to the teachers that fit more into my teaching style: the fun ones, the ones that cracked the occasional bad (or usually dreadful) jokes, the ones that made the work not seem so much like…work. Many equally good teachers, mind you, but completely different from Mr. Perkins.

After reflecting today on 4 years (plus one season instructing) with Mr. Perkins and the Dondero bands, I came to an epiphany. I realized that my professional development, as with all things, must be about balance. Being a cheerleader and full of energy and enthusiasm for the subject I teach is useful and important, but just because it's what I'm comfortable with doesn't mean I should rest on my laurels by relying on it exclusively.

If there is one major life lesson I learned from Dick Perkins, it was this: The work may be hard, it may be boring or even excruciating at times, but the rewards are far richer when you do it right, learn something from it, and know that you succeeded through your own perseverance.

Thank you, Mr. Perkins. You will forever be a part of me, and your legacy will live on through every student I teach and ever note of music that emanates from me for the rest of my life. I will work for that.