Well, here we are, deep into the school year. It's only October, but we have been back to school since before Labor Day- a first for us this year in Pasadena. I have nearly 300 kids signed up to play music in the elementary classes, and all but a handful of the instruments in my inventory are checked out. Kids are blowing in head-joints, buzzing lips, plucking open strings, learning about playing postion and rest position. They are excited, and in every single new class, sometime in this first month, sometime during the relative noise and chaos of those first meetings, someone will turn a clarinet or a trumpet or a violin up, place it on his shoulder (it really is the boys who do this, not girls) make two clicking sounds and then pantomime a kick back, and an innocent musical instrument is transformed into a gun. It is universal. It ALWAYS happens. My response to this is quick and serious: guns are not allowed at school, guns are not a joke, and instruments are never, NEVER guns. Usually I get a wide-eyed stare back, like how-did-she-even-know-what-I-was-doing...as though he was the first person ever to think of doing that.
I remember in the 70's when I had friends my age with small children, and those children were not allowed to play with guns, or weapons of any kind. These kids were not given cap pistols or air rifles or even pop guns, but they DID play with guns. Sticks, trucks, Legos, almost anything, except maybe a stuffed animal could become a gun. I am quite sure that if I had been teaching music classes then, the clarinets would have had their turn as semi-automatic rifles. We, as children, did play with toy guns, had a couple of realistic-looking pistols in a closet high up, where we had to ask permission to get them down. Sometimes we had rolls of caps that fit into the hammer, so that when you pulled the trigger, they made a dandy sound and emitted light, smoke, and the smell of gunpowder.They were fun, but I didn't care much one way or the other about them, and have absolutely no interest in guns, toy or otherwise, now. But, in every new class, in every year for 15 years, and I'll bet for the next 15 years, someone does.
So forgive me, kids, for getting on your cases about it, but in a post-Columbine world, I don't feel I have a choice. I cannot say that allowing 4th graders to weaponize their trombones will result in mass shootings in the high school cafeteria later, and I cannot say that making a big-deal prohibition of this weaponization will prevent such horrors from happening. But if I don't make my speech, I will be forever hearing that click-click kaboom, we will have it in every class, every week, instead of just the first month. I think we're done with it for this year. Good.
Saturday, October 22, 2011
Sunday, October 9, 2011
My Life in 6 Songs: Part IV- War/Lean on Me
Hai-yai, Kay-ay-kus
Nobody like us,
we are the campers of RSC!
Always a-grinnin'
Always a-winnin'
Always a-feelin' fine!
Kay-Ay!
Okay, this is actually two songs or maybe three if you count the one above. But they merge in my mind into the experience of one summer- the summer of 1972. I had graduated from high school a year early and was excited about starting college in the fall, and had landed my first job as part of the kitchen staff at Rotary Sunshine Camp in Rochester. RSC was, and is still, a summer camp serving disabled children( http://www.sunshinecampus.org/). The idea behind the camp is that, for a couple weeks each year, no matter how disabled a child is, he or she will be able to have fun, just like any other kid. Swimming, camping out, crafts, campfires, movie nights, special visits from bagpipe troupes and ventriloquists, sherriff helicopters and magicians all were accessible to even the most severely involved child. 4 ten-day sessions brought hundreds of children from ages 7-18 to the 23 acre camp situated on the shores of Lake Ontario. The camp relocated in 1973, and the format of the summer program has changed, but the mission of the camp remains to serve children whose disabilities keep them from being able to participate in other summer programs.
I worked in the kitchen. I had wanted to be a counselor, but was only 17 so was not yet eligible for that position. Instead, I was part of a team which included two other high school girls, Chris and Janet, Stella, our severe chief/chef, and Henry, a handsome African-American young man, the first such person I had ever spent any close time with. Our day started at 6:30 a.m. preparing breakfast for the 200 or so campers and staff. We broke egg yolks with our fingers in the steel vats where they cooked into scrambled eggs. We put out boxes of cereal and made piles of toast. We boiled pots of oatmeal. We fried bacon or sausage. We set tables with napkins and flatware at each place. The staff routinely and loudly complained about the lousy food, but to many of the campers, it was delicious.
In our kitchen was a radio that played all day long, tuned to a top 40's radio station. Having been brought up in a household where mostly only classical music played every day, the songs that came out of that radio were new to me. Stella tolerated the radio, but only because, I think, she was a little afraid of Henry. She was a no-nonsense boss, who kept us busy all the hours of our shifts, scrubbing the floor, mixing up government-issued butter with the dry, government-issued peanut butter, cutting, slicing, mixing, cleaning, washing dishes in the big, steamy Hobart.
Henry did all the heavy work, and was a jovial foil to Stella's seriousness. He was NOT afraid of her, as we girls were, and joshed her and teased her till she would crack a tiny smile, indicating that she wasn't all that tough after all. He was a lusty boy who stole kisses from us girls in the walk-in refrigerator. But he was our friend, and the kisses were just silliness that lightened the day.
We worked through the morning, and then had a couple hours off every afternoon to do as we pleased before coming back in to start on dinner. We finished the dinner work by around 6:30 and then had the evening to do what we pleased. Being teenagers, we would stay up till 2:00 or 3:00 a.m. and then get up at 6 to start all over again. We had 2 days off out of 10. It was a gruelling schedule for a solid 8 weeks. For this entire summer of work I earned $125.00. We got room and board, so I really didn't spend any of it, and it was the first money I had ever earned doing anything besides babysitting, so it seemed a small fortune.
In those afternoon hours, Henry wanted to prepare a song for the staff talent show. "War" (Edwin Starr http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=01-2pNCZiNk) was one of the songs that came out of our radio in the kitchen. Henry told us he had a band that was going to come to the camp to play for one of the dances and he wanted us to perform this song with them. We were going to be the three white chick back up singers and he used some of our time in the afternoons to teach us the moves. My memory is fuzzy about whether we actually ever performed this song. I seem to remember that the whole band thing was a hoax. But we had fun, and whenever I hear that song I think of those days.
The other song that takes me right back to the steam tables of Stella's kitchen is Lean On Me (Bill Withers http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HaVXfHZv50Y ) which was also on the playlist of our top 40s station. It was a summer of firsts. This song might be one of the first top 40 songs I ever knew all the words to. We sang along in the kitchen as we opened #10 cans of ravioli and green beans or mixed up vats of jello or made sheet cakes. We were 4 strangers who shared 8 weeks of hard work and hard play. I don't know what ever happened to any of those people, but when I went back the next year as a counselor, they were all gone. I never complained about the food.
Nobody like us,
we are the campers of RSC!
Always a-grinnin'
Always a-winnin'
Always a-feelin' fine!
Kay-Ay!
Okay, this is actually two songs or maybe three if you count the one above. But they merge in my mind into the experience of one summer- the summer of 1972. I had graduated from high school a year early and was excited about starting college in the fall, and had landed my first job as part of the kitchen staff at Rotary Sunshine Camp in Rochester. RSC was, and is still, a summer camp serving disabled children( http://www.sunshinecampus.org/). The idea behind the camp is that, for a couple weeks each year, no matter how disabled a child is, he or she will be able to have fun, just like any other kid. Swimming, camping out, crafts, campfires, movie nights, special visits from bagpipe troupes and ventriloquists, sherriff helicopters and magicians all were accessible to even the most severely involved child. 4 ten-day sessions brought hundreds of children from ages 7-18 to the 23 acre camp situated on the shores of Lake Ontario. The camp relocated in 1973, and the format of the summer program has changed, but the mission of the camp remains to serve children whose disabilities keep them from being able to participate in other summer programs.
I worked in the kitchen. I had wanted to be a counselor, but was only 17 so was not yet eligible for that position. Instead, I was part of a team which included two other high school girls, Chris and Janet, Stella, our severe chief/chef, and Henry, a handsome African-American young man, the first such person I had ever spent any close time with. Our day started at 6:30 a.m. preparing breakfast for the 200 or so campers and staff. We broke egg yolks with our fingers in the steel vats where they cooked into scrambled eggs. We put out boxes of cereal and made piles of toast. We boiled pots of oatmeal. We fried bacon or sausage. We set tables with napkins and flatware at each place. The staff routinely and loudly complained about the lousy food, but to many of the campers, it was delicious.
In our kitchen was a radio that played all day long, tuned to a top 40's radio station. Having been brought up in a household where mostly only classical music played every day, the songs that came out of that radio were new to me. Stella tolerated the radio, but only because, I think, she was a little afraid of Henry. She was a no-nonsense boss, who kept us busy all the hours of our shifts, scrubbing the floor, mixing up government-issued butter with the dry, government-issued peanut butter, cutting, slicing, mixing, cleaning, washing dishes in the big, steamy Hobart.
Henry did all the heavy work, and was a jovial foil to Stella's seriousness. He was NOT afraid of her, as we girls were, and joshed her and teased her till she would crack a tiny smile, indicating that she wasn't all that tough after all. He was a lusty boy who stole kisses from us girls in the walk-in refrigerator. But he was our friend, and the kisses were just silliness that lightened the day.
We worked through the morning, and then had a couple hours off every afternoon to do as we pleased before coming back in to start on dinner. We finished the dinner work by around 6:30 and then had the evening to do what we pleased. Being teenagers, we would stay up till 2:00 or 3:00 a.m. and then get up at 6 to start all over again. We had 2 days off out of 10. It was a gruelling schedule for a solid 8 weeks. For this entire summer of work I earned $125.00. We got room and board, so I really didn't spend any of it, and it was the first money I had ever earned doing anything besides babysitting, so it seemed a small fortune.
In those afternoon hours, Henry wanted to prepare a song for the staff talent show. "War" (Edwin Starr http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=01-2pNCZiNk) was one of the songs that came out of our radio in the kitchen. Henry told us he had a band that was going to come to the camp to play for one of the dances and he wanted us to perform this song with them. We were going to be the three white chick back up singers and he used some of our time in the afternoons to teach us the moves. My memory is fuzzy about whether we actually ever performed this song. I seem to remember that the whole band thing was a hoax. But we had fun, and whenever I hear that song I think of those days.
The other song that takes me right back to the steam tables of Stella's kitchen is Lean On Me (Bill Withers http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HaVXfHZv50Y ) which was also on the playlist of our top 40s station. It was a summer of firsts. This song might be one of the first top 40 songs I ever knew all the words to. We sang along in the kitchen as we opened #10 cans of ravioli and green beans or mixed up vats of jello or made sheet cakes. We were 4 strangers who shared 8 weeks of hard work and hard play. I don't know what ever happened to any of those people, but when I went back the next year as a counselor, they were all gone. I never complained about the food.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)