My life in 6 Songs: Part III Water Music

7 a.m. in the Crocker household at 10 Ironwood Dr. in Rochester NY. The family is stirring, beginning the day. From the radio in early years, and the homemade stereo "hi-fi" tuner in later years sounds the reveille that accompanied the morning every day for the 17 years I lived with my parents: George Frederick Handel's Water Music- specifically the Hornpipe in D that was the sign-on signature from WBBF-FM 91.5 on your FM dial.

Dad was a guy who had to have the radio going, tuned to his favorite radio station every day from Water Music to the National Anthem. The classical play list of WBBF was the background of all activity in our household, and is the reason I didn't know much about pop music till I left home. Such was Dad's dependence on his personal soundtrack that he installed speakers in both bathrooms, the dining room, the basement and the back patio. With kits purchased from Craig Audio Shack, he rigged up elaborate switches to control which speakers were playing, so it would be possible for us to watch TV in the living room, while he enjoyed a Mahler Symphony in the backyard.

Dad was an expert on this music, and would confidently announce the composer and name of a piece playing whose introduction he had missed (how? Walking from the car where the radio was also permanently tuned to WBBF? Walking from one room to the next? In the flush of a toilet? Or the buzz of a saw during a building project of which there were many? ) I was always amazed that he knew so many of the pieces, could identify them within a few moments. When I asked him how he knew so much, he said it was from his days as an usher in a theater in Minneapolis where he grew up. I guess instead of Coke-sponsored trivia quizzes on the screen accompanied by up-and-coming pop artists, the movie theaters of yesteryear played classical music for their patrons.

Many years after I left home, my parents retired and bought a house on 20 acres near Columbus, Ohio. My sisters and I loved this rural retreat with its woods full of songbirds and spacious grounds including a small pond perfect for swimming and puttering around in various dilapidated watercraft.

One day, after a compressed year of school and who-knows-what other kinds of stress, my older sister and I visited the "farm" for some R&R. We decided to take a ride in the crummy rowboat that spent most of its time upside down on the grass. We pictured ourselves languidly floating around in the green water, chatting and listening to the quiet. But here came Dad, sliding open the doors to the large garage and pulling out two large speakers, aiming them right at us! Just in time for Shostakovitch 5 he told us! Here, you can listen from right where you are! If you know this piece, you can imagine that it was just the thing to destroy the mood of a bucolic afternoon shutting up the birds and thwarting any quiet chat. My sister and I just shook our heads. Some things never change.

Nowadays, I am called upon to play cello occasionally for weddings with a local string quartet. Almost every time out, we play the Hornpipe from Water Music, either as prelude music, for cocktails or sometimes for the wedding itself. Dad has been gone for over a decade already, and WBBF is thousands of miles away. I wonder if they still play Hornpipe every morning. But always, every time we play that piece, memories of early childhood morning in the Crocker household fill the space just behind my eyes. And when I listen to our Southern California KUSC classical radio station and miss the introduction of the piece, I amaze myself that I can confidently name the composer, if not always exactly the name of the work. Thanks, Dad.