ALMOST FATAL ATTRACTION

 

Note: this is a re-post from my old blog Lone Star Concerto. It's definitely worth a rerun. And it's the absolute truth.   Jon V.

 
When I was studying music in college, I practically lived in practice rooms. I practiced the piano several hours a day - - while also balancing a frenzy of rehearsals with orchestras, chamber groups, and soloists. As if this wasn't enough, I was also a student piano teacher for several semesters. To say that my musical life was full would be an understatement.

One of my piano teachers was a former Julliard professor named Raymond Jones. His wife also taught at the college. My practice room was adjacent to her classroom and she would often chide me for practicing too loudly. Bursting into the practice room in a breathless fluster, she'd demand me to "play quietly" and admonish me for "seriously disrupting" her class.

On good days Mrs. Jones always acted a bit peculiar. On bad days she was downright bizarre. Eventually it was discovered that she had a brain tumor, which she succumbed to within a year.

Fortunately, my playing didn't annoy everyone. Curious people often stopped by the practice room to hear me play. One of these music aficionados was a young woman whom I'll call Linda, who was the niece of the famous Hollywood actor Tyrone Power (then deceased). She would share stories about her famous uncle and show me family photos. Linda had a small baby who contracted pneumonia and she dropped out of college to care for him. I never saw her again.

Another admirer who frequented my practice room was an attractive dark-haired "girl" named Janice ( her real name). She was studying singing and had a decent voice. I knew that Janice was smitten by my irresistible charm (hey, what can I say?) but I didn't initially realize just how serious she was.

One afternoon I drove her to her tennis lesson. She assumed that this innocuous gesture meant I was interested. Despite the fact that I gave no encouragement, her admiration for me increased.

A short time later, a big Fluke of Fate tossed us together again. Janice was giving a solo singing recital at the college one afternoon. At nearly the very last minute, her pianist accompanist cancelled for some emergency that I can't recall. Major panic ensued and a very flustered professor accosted me, asking (truly begging) me to take over as pianist.

I (very reluctantly) acquiesced and was immediately handed a pile of music manuscripts. The concert was to start in less than an hour. I had never seen any of the music before and had never previously accompanied Janice anywhere except to the damn tennis lesson.

The only preparation that I had came from a bottle of whiskey that I kept stashed under the front seat of my car (in the college parking lot). I took several generous swigs for courage.

I made my way to the stage and sat at the grand piano. Janice began singing. I began sight-reading and faking my way through the likes of Purcell, Brahms, and Ralph Vaughn Williams. Incredibly, the concert went off without a noticeable hitch. I was lauded for involuntarily saving the day (I must have been a damn genius).

In a surge of effusive romanticism, Janice assumed I was her hero. She was enamored. We'd made beautiful music together!

After our haphazard impromptu musical debut she began following me everywhere like a homeless puppy. Constantly calling me (somehow got my phone number),

 sending scented notes, eventually sending daily letters of endearment (this was before the advent of cell phones or email). Her enthrallment escalated into stalking the living hell out of me.

I was admittedly sweet and charming back then (you'd never know it now, would you?). And I was not only congenial, but also easy. To some extent I might have possibly slightly encouraged the girl's rapture. Inadvertently, of course.

Fortunately, I didn't have to worry about being stalked for long. It all came to a surprisingly dramatic abrupt end one afternoon at the college.

It happened in the main auditorium. During a rehearsal with the college chamber orchestra. I was the harpsichordist for a performance of Handel's oratorio Samson. We were in the middle of the overture.

Suddenly one of the auditorium doors burst open. A burly-looking guy in Army fatigues stormed in and strutted right up to the harpsichord. I could hardly believe what was happening but I could definitely smell his wrath.

His shouting reverberated throughout the room with perfect acoustics and his message was like a venomous bite.

"You better stop screwing with my wife!" he shouted at me. He didn't actually say "screwing". He was a little more graphic.

"What?" I was in the advanced stages of shock.

"Janice is my wife, you bastard! If you go near her again I'll KILL you! I mean it!"

I believed him.

I'm actually politely paraphrasing what he said. I can't remember the exact words, but the killing part was permanently etched in my mind.

Holy shit.

As the irate Army dude haughtily huffed out of the room, I could hear a collective gasp from the orchestra. Nobody knew what to do. I tried to gather my shredded wits.

"Next time we rehearse, I'll wear a bullet-proof vest," I announced.

It was all I could think of saying. It didn't generate much laughter.

I had absolutely no idea whatsoever that Janice was married. She sure as hell never bothered to tell me. I later learned that her husband had been stationed in Georgia and was home on leave. I have no clue how he found out about me.

So, you're all asking the Big Question: did Janice and I ever have sex?
Hey, I seldom kiss and tell.....and why  should I spill it all for free in a public blog? Wait until I publish my memoirs. You'll get your money's worth.

Truth to tell, at that time I was having a passionate relationship with......somebody......named.....phillip

I will say that in those glorious days of my California youth I often attracted drama and generated sexual tension. I'm not bragging or being "self-absorbed" I'm merely telling the truth.

I was always an equal-opportunity offender.

Okay, I omitted my final paragraph because I probably said too much.... ...(one of my trademarks).

Sweet youth......sweeter memories.....

Jon ❤️ more fascinating than a Barbara Cartland novel

     

SKOOL DAZE

 I left California when I was in my early thirties. Transplanted myself in the Missouri Ozarks, West Texas, and now Tennessee.

When I abandoned California, I was really surprised to learn that school started in August in many places. I consider August to be the pinnacle of summer. School?? Never!
When I was a kid in Southern California school always started in mid-September, usually around the 15th. September in Southern Cal is almost always the hottest month of the year. Blisteringly hot.

 I vividly remember the September when I started seventh grade. I was only eleven years old (I began first grade at the age of four - - at Rutgers Prep, the posh private school in New Jersey). 

My seventh grade school was Dale Junior High in Anaheim, California. The first day that school started there was a horrific heat wave. The brutal desert Santa Ana winds blew in and the temperature soared to 115 degrees (Fahrenheit). It stayed that way for nearly a week.

Dale Junior High as it looks today.
There were absolutely no trees around when I attended school there - only a few palm trees across the street.

 

Back then in ancient times, nobody catered to kids. Despite the searing heat, the schools never shut down. I had to walk over two miles (one way) to school. No buses on my route. No rides. 

The heat was so intense that we really didn't have any constructive classes. There was no air-conditioning. Our teachers would open the doors and all the windows and turn out the lights. We'd swelter in a dark classroom, using wet paper towels to try to keep cool.

I think walking home was the worst part. I was so desperately dehydrated that I nearly passed out. If you think 100 degrees is hot, you should experience 115 on a long walk when you're eleven years old.

Come to think of it - during all my school years, I never rode the bus. I always walked - from second grade through my senior year.

Change of subject, sort of

I also never ate in the school cafeteria, not once. I always brought my lunch. In second grade I had a "farmer" lunch pail. It was shaped like a barn. Later I progressed to a Flintstones lunch box (heaven help us). After that, my mind's a blank. I think I brought all subsequent lunches in a brown paper bag.

A rather unflattering photo of me, probably age six, in Glendora, California -  showing off my new barnyard lunch pail (was my hair really that light?).

I didn't look like a child when I was six. I resembled a CEO or something. The children at Rutgers Prep in NJ were dressed meticulously. In California it was  more casual.....

....but Dale Junior High had a strict dress code when I was there.

Years later, when I was a student piano teacher in behalf of Cypress College, two of my young pupils were brothers who attended Dale Junior High. The crime in that school was so rampant that their mother removed them from Dale JH and placed them in a Catholic school.

Nowadays anything goes. Kids show up in schools with tattoos, nose rings, tattered jeans - - and that's just the girls.

Civil society has diminished into absolute trash.

Jon 💚  yearning for the old days

Afterthought

Ever since I (erroneously) announced that my blog would be discontinued, readership dwindled. The general consensus was that I'd croak and be done with.

My blog post reruns (like this one) seem to inspire even more of a mass exodus.

But I plan to remain, eternally bewitching you with my mesmeric magic.

I can't resist.