Playing To Open The Recital

Mary Ann, a piano teacher, attends our Mid-Week Bible Study. She is an excellent pianist who has occasionally accompanied our daughter, a soloist, in the church service. She said that Mary Ann never plays from the original score but arranges her music to suit her own taste.

One evening Mary Ann announced that her piano students would be having a piano recital and it would be in White Rock Baptist Church. She wanted her Bible Study Group to assist her in presenting the program, by supplying an announcer, a greeter, a host and guest artist. She asked me to open the program with the bagpipes, to which I happily consented. I would soon appreciate the high caliber of her students.

To play the pipes for an audience in a sanctuary so well noted for its fine acoustics was an honor and Mary Ann’s invitation to open the program was exciting. In fact, the Welsh Men’s Choir chooses this venue every year because of its fine acoustics. A gentleman who sings with me in our church choir also sings in the Welsh Men’s Choir.

I entered the stage from the right side, playing “Highland Cathedral,” and marched across several times. I was absolutely entranced by the sound’s fullness. The whole sanctuary was filled with the bagpipes’ harmonics. Never, have I experienced such richness of tone as I did that afternoon. It was a wonderful feeling and I could have desired to continue playing. However, I realized this was not my recital but that of Mary Ann’s piano students. I stepped down a few steps to conclude the anthem. The group of 15 piano students arranged themselves around me to lead everyone in Mary Ann’s beautiful arrangement of our National Anthem, “O Canada!” Obviously, the singers were accomplished musicians and maneuvered gracefully through the intricacies of Mary Ann’s ingenious arrangement. We were about to hear some amazing young pianists. Mary Ann’s students were gifted and it was certain that they practiced conscientiously. They needed no sheets of music. It was well memorized and would have consisted of many pages. They were disciplined and polite, because they bowed before and after every presentation.

When the recital was over and after the students presented their parents with roses, we were in the reception. A lady took me by the arm and said she thought “Highland Cathedral was a beautiful song, and because her husband missed it, she was “really in hot water with him now.” He had asked her if she thought he should attend this music recital and she had advised him, “there wouldn’t be anything there for him and he might as well stay home and relax.” That’s what he did. He’s the gentleman who sings in the Men’s Welsh Choir and who told me many times, that his favorite piece of music is “Highland Cathedral,” especially when played on the bagpipes. Now, she would have to go home and tell him that he missed his favorite selection and that she was terribly sorry she had given him the wrong piece of advice. It was a beautiful compliment however, that she would tell me she enjoyed it, and that her husband would have too, if he had been there. I enjoyed playing so much in that acoustically perfect sanctuary that I could have played a whole concert if it had been the right thing to do. It would be a wonderful experience!

A Tribute to My Dad (The Second Blog on Memories of My Dad)

Dad loved to play the fiddle. He played in an old-time dance band before he was married. My sister Earla chorded on the piano to his music and he kept time with his foot. Similarly, he kept strict time as he added whole columns of numbers aloud when he did his own bookkeeping, years before we had hand calculators.


From his studies in Business College, before he was married, Dad learned penmanship. His handwriting was beautiful, done with a flourish. With his pen he was an artist. His specialty was to draw a bird in a nest. Through the picture, would run a quill, which was a feathered straight pen, the trademark of a penman. Each of my sisters, Earla, Euna and Margaret, requested an original, which they received years before he went to be with God.


Relatives shipped him an old bellows-operated pedal organ that once played in a country church. Considerable work was required to restore it, but he accepted the challenge. Eventually, he had it working perfectly and we kids took turns pumping with our feet and playing. Earla and her husband Dave, in Iowa, wanted the organ and Dad sent it to them in the States where it will now be in possession of Earla's daughter.


He once acquired an oak dining room set and spent many hours restoring all the chairs, table and buffet. He made the top as smooth and polished as the day it was made. My sister, Margaret’s daughter Donna, has the set in her home in Calgary. This was Dad’s way of expressing his love. Likewise, he made cedar chests for my three sisters.


Dad was ambitious, and more so than any of us. Once he decided upon a project, he undertook it with a passion. He didn’t ponder over it, but would undertake it until the job was complete. Sometimes, I thought he would complete all his “jobs” and have nothing left to do. That never happened, because one hot day in the summer, he undertook to paint white walls on the tires of his Studebaker. The paintbrush fell out of his hand and he was unable to retrieve it. The stroke took him home 42 days later. He accomplished much during his lifetime and completed any task to perfection except the last one.


When Ken and I were boys about six and seven years old, Dad had to drive over to Hanover from Kinloss Ontario, with a friend. Mom thought the trip would be good for the two of us, so she encouraged us to hide between the front and back seats of the car. Dad and his friend didn’t know we were there until we were quite far along our way, so Dad accepted that we might as well enjoy the rest of the ride. I’m not sure to this day if Mom and Dad planned the trip. I can’t ask them because they are no longer here, but I think they did.


When Ken and I set up our practices, Dad helped in building the partitions. When we left home and shared a house together, he helped us finish the basement. In my own first house, the basement washroom vanity needed to be retrofitted to the sink. Before long, Dad added the cabinet like it had always been there. Together, he and I worked to install ceiling tiles until Dad got tired and went home for a rest. I continued alone, concentrating on how to cut the edge tiles. I had to turn them upside down and mark them, which was a trick he had shown me. Then, as I was getting quite tired, I made a mistake and in my exasperation, I threw the wrongly sawed tile across the room. Just then, I heard Dad say as he returned, “I saw that.”


I admitted that I had made a mistake and cut the wrong edge of the tile and realized it wouldn’t fit. Then, he said, do you have anything to drink? I said, “Sure, I have Ginger Ale and a bit of rye whiskey.” He said, “Could you just make it straight?” So, I poured a “neat” one for each of us and we stood back and let it go down. It burned all the way and I could feel it hit the bottom. He said, “I think you have had a pretty full day, and I think you should take a rest and finish your job tomorrow.” That was excellent advice, and we sat down in the living room and talked for a while before suppertime. Neither of us took to drinking. We both prized the time we had to do things, but once in a while, there has to come a time to relax and Dad taught me it was a good thing to do.

Memories of my Dad

We will soon be celebrating “Father’s Day.”  I would like to share some fond memories of my Dad.


It’s twenty-five years now, since Dad passed away.  He had a stroke and was gone in 42 days. I wasn’t able to say “Good-bye,” because he could not respond. Since then, I’ve had many memories of little experiences during the years when he was alive and well.


I recall when I was about a year old and determined to see if Santa Claus had come.  I ventured down the steps in the blackness of night and tumbled down with enough noise to wake the household.  I hadn’t discovered whether Santa Claus had already come or not, but lovingly, Dad carried me back to my bed.  He suggested that I should be patient until morning, and then see if Santa had come in the night.  He came, either before or after my little incident.


I could have been two years old when Dad was a Scout leader and considered me too young to participate.  Mom suggested that I should go where the group was having its wiener roast.  It was across a field in a bush, and I remember running over the rough terrain.  The Scouts and Dad were easily located and I was welcomed.  Dad put a spare Scout belt on me, which was too large for a little guy.  Then he swung me back and forth in it. In a few years I grew into the belt. Ultimately, it was a keepsake.


I couldn’t have been much older when I foolishly pounded a piece of broken windowpane with a hammer, just to see the ‘diamonds’ fly this way and that.  Suddenly, a sharp piece flew into my eye.  I cried and cried. Dad was home and he immediately saw what had happened and he carried me, crying all the way to Dr. Scratch’s office, in the business part of the small town of Maymont Saskatchewan.  I remember the doctor lighting a match to cast a shadow across my eye, to see if there was a fragment of glass imbedded in it.  He could see nothing, which was logical, because my crying on the way would have washed out any tiny fragment.  It was providential that the speck of glass had been washed out.


I was fortunate, because in my work years later as an optometrist, I saw, as I examined the eyes of a young fellow, what looked like a ‘shooting star’ on his cornea.  The lad explained that it was a splinter from a pop bottle that broke as it struck the goal post.  It was being used as a puck during street hockey.  This small piece of glass flew into his cornea and imbedded itself for several years.  I realized then, how anxious Dad would have been as he watched Dr. Scratch looking for a fragment of glass in my eye.


I would have been four when I happened to be under the wooden steps of the church next door to us in Maymont Saskatchewan.  Sitting above me was my sister Euna and her friend Mary Rogers, having a friendly chat. Seeing the scraps of paper and twigs around me, I had the bright idea of playing a joke on them by setting a small fire immediately beneath them. I scurried home and saw that my mother was occupied in the kitchen.  Quietly, without causing any distraction, I moved a chair to the cupboard where I knew she kept the matches.  Reaching up, I took a couple.  Away I ran, behind the church, then around towards the front and under the steps.  The girls were still having their little visit.  After gathering a small patch of paper and twigs, I lit a small fire and the smoke curled nicely up between them.  They were taken entirely by surprise and called out, “Fire!”  I was out of there, rounding the back of the church, then home, in short order.


I remember seeing some people running with buckets.  They responded quickly.  I could not have been recognized. However, when dad came home from school that afternoon, he asked me to come and sit on his knee because he wanted to talk.  He asked if I had anything to do with the fire under the church steps.  I denied knowing anything about it, and the reason for that was that I was afraid of being punished, not only for setting the fire but also for acquiring the matches.  In all the years since then, I never admitted to my dad that I was the person responsible, and I still carry the guilt of not answering my dad truthfully.  I believe he knew and was satisfied that if I wouldn’t tell him I did it, I would not tell anyone else. My secret would be safe.  Nevertheless, I still wish I had told him at some time.  I will tell him when I see him in Heaven although he will have known.


I recall when I was four, having broken the neighbour’s window with a softball when tossing it to my brother.  Dad recognized it as an accident and only asked me to be more careful. I remember him repairing the window, doing what I didn’t yet have the skill to do and I appreciated it.


I was only five when I drove my wagon on the highway that passed our house in Lashburn Saskatchewan.  I would put my right knee in the wagon and use the left leg for power.  Many miles were made on my wagon, and an early demise was certain if I continued to drive it on the road. Dad convinced the school’s principal to enroll me in grade one.  My life was saved and this is the reason why I got an early start in school.


For two years we lived in Kinloss Ontario, where our home was connected to a corner store.  It was located where the Goderich highway intersects with the highway that runs between Kincardine and Walkerton. Dad renovated the old-fashioned store and built shelves that were a convenient height.  He and my mother loved working in the store.  When I came home from school one day, Dad was leaning back against the counter talking to a customer seated across from him. He was preparing a long bamboo rod for me to go fishing with the grade two class.  My dad was very thoughtful to prepare a fishing pole for my school field trip.


We moved back to Lashburn Saskatchewan because Dad had been offered the position of High School principal and he decided to accept.  Our family loved to go to Lake Waskesiu for holidays and we enjoyed fishing with our dad.  One of us would row the boat while the others trolled and caught big Jackfish.  There are pictures of us with many fish strung on a rope.  Dad taught us to clean them so Mom could prepare delicious fish dinners. I have precious memories of those holidays with our family.


Dad was an expert carpenter.  Before he married Mom, he would work in the summers building barns with his dad.  He told us about building a dairy barn with the two main sections meeting at right angles.  The roof was a half-circle.  It required an especially shaped rafter where the two roofs met.  In the fall, he took the dimensions to his Mathematics class at the university.  With assistance from his professor, he returned in the spring with a formula for the rafter that would join the two sections of the dairy barn.  I was always amazed that Dad accepted that challenge. How he succeeded in enabling the carpenters to build the correct rafter on the ground intrigued him.


Dad took classes in his first year of university and for the remainder of his BA in History and Mathematics he corresponded.  Meanwhile, Dad kept books for his clients. Mom and Dad raised five of us.  Dad was a High School principal when I was born.  Mom told us that Dad celebrated by giving chocolate bars to his students.  It was wonderful to have his assistance when we were doing homework.  His help in Algebra and Trigonometry was immeasurable when we were in High School.  As a result, I did well in Math in the final exams and it was easier for me when I went to university.


Dad promised that he would assist me financially in going to university as long as I was achieving, but he would not do so if I didn’t continue to be conscientious.  He recalled my days in High School when I spent more time building motor scooters than doing homework.  He promised me his own violin, which I was already playing, if I passed with a sufficient grade to enter university.  He also promised me a set of bagpipes if I would learn to play them.  He wanted very much to learn how to play the pipes himself and he would find it so much better if we could learn together.  We learned to play the pipes, Dad and I and my brother Ken.  For many years, the three of us paraded with the band and Dad especially enjoyed the times when we marched in the same row.  In January 1976, Dad, Ken and I played with the Massed Pipes and Drums of Winnipeg in the Rosebowl Parade in Pasadena, CA.


After I had graduated in Science from the University of Manitoba, Dad met the Dean of the College of Optometry who was in Winnipeg to tell the Kiwanians about the advances in the profession and the plans its board of directors had to advance the course of studies.  A university degree would be required for entrance.  Dad introduced me to Dr. Edward Fisher, the Dean, during the few hours he had in the city.  I am thankful that Dad thought this profession would interest me and that I might want to meet the dean.  I credit my Dad for his concern for my future and for letting me know of this opportunity to apply to the College of Optometry.  I enrolled in the new course and ultimately became successful in the profession.  Dad was happy when he could tell his friends that Keith is an optometrist and Ken is a dentist.


While I was studying at the University of Toronto, I didn’t write home as frequently as I should have.  One day, while I was studying in the College of Optometry’s Library, the phone rang and I realized there was no one in the office.  I answered the phone immediately, and recognized my dad’s voice.  He enquired how I was and I wondered if he often phoned the College to ask the dean how I was doing.  I never knew if this was a one and only call, but it was great to hear Dad and to be assured that he and Mom loved me.  Dad said Mom was anxious about me and that I should write to her.


There are numerous other stories reminiscent of my Dad.  I will write about them also.