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My parents started me on piano lessons when I was in second grade. I hated it! I wanted
to be outside playing with my friends instead of spending a whole half hour on that blasted
monstrous piece of furniture. What importance could that have on my life? Why did Mom and
Dad think it was something I had to learn?

I knew my mom was an accomplished pianist and she also had a beautiful singing voice. She

was always being asked to play piano as an accompaniest somewhere, and she sang at local
functions alot. While I was very proud that "that was MY mama!", I didn't see that as anything
I would ever do, or even be interested in.

But every Tuesday afternoon I would walk from the school house to Mrs. Hawk's house, and put
in my half hour lesson time, and then walk home. I loved Mrs. Hawk. She was always so nice
and sweet to me, although she did tell me time and time again as I grew older that I just was
not a natural piano player like my older cousin, Jerry. He was going to be a great concert
pianist, while I would be lucky to just plug away and make some halfway decent noise. Talk
about a morale buster! Mrs. Hawk was not trying to hurt my feelings; she just wanted me to
try harder....I think. I had heard Jerry play. He WAS great! He played at weddings and other
events, and when we had our little piano recitals, I always felt upstaged by him, no matter
how hard I had practiced. And believe me, my parents did make sure I put in my 45 minutes
each and every day!

Over the years (after Jerry grew up, got married, and saw his piano playing career become
an insurance sales career!)I started to realize that I truly did like music. And I became
somewhat proud that in music class at school I could read the notes, and know how a song
should be sung and even sound. I started helping my fellow students and friends, which helped
me to feel useful. That's important to a kid!

When I was 14 or so, I got a guitar. The Beatles, Monkees, Stones were all in their
popular stages then, so of course I had to learn to play the guitar. My girlfriends Ellen
and Joan and I would write songs, sing them, and I played the music. We had alot of fun; our
group was called the Dreamettes, but that's exactly what we were....dreamers. Nothing came
of it, but we grew really close. The neighbors around our house would come out on their
porches or over to ours to listen to us sing and play, and we only heard good things about it.
The evenings our family and friends spent together outside while we sang hold some of the
sweetest childhood

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