Log in Subscribe
Ramona's Ramblings

Rock star, anyone?

Ramona Jan
Posted 10/18/22

My father was a natural musician who picked up instruments easily, playing mostly bebop jazz on the sax and clarinet. During the Korean War, he played in the Navy band and because he was also a fast …

This item is available in full to subscribers.

Please log in to continue

Log in
Ramona's Ramblings

Rock star, anyone?

Posted

My father was a natural musician who picked up instruments easily, playing mostly bebop jazz on the sax and clarinet. During the Korean War, he played in the Navy band and because he was also a fast typist, acted as secretary on a ship that toured the Far East.

At night, I could hear my father rehearsing for hours in his shop on sax and clarinet playing soft jazz riffs with the utmost precision. 

I could also hear someone in the distance practicing trumpet in the parking lot behind our house, a young man playing taps and other trumpet solos. The parts clashed, but both were soothing sounds to which I would fall asleep. Besides, it was jazz.

I take up playing the clarinet in the school band only because my father knows how to play and we have an extra one, therefore saving money on rentals. I have little interest in the instrument, and lessons with dad are difficult. He has no patience and is not good at explaining things. He gets overly angry when I refuse to tap my feet. 

I don’t think it’s necessary to tap feet. I can feel the beat. When I tap my feet, I lose the feel and music becomes too mechanical. I try and explain this to him, but he’ll not hear it. I quit the clarinet and take up the saxophone. I drop that even quicker. 

It’s too heavy and it requires way too much breathing. Plus, I’d rather play piano. At a friend’s house there’s a piano and I beg to play it. 

“Are you taking lessons?” the mom asks. It’s a question I wasn’t expecting. Why do I need lessons just to diddle around? Does she think I’ll break the thing? 

“Yes,” I lie and begin to improvise. I have no idea what I’m doing, but I love the feel of the keys and what I can make them do. I play as many pianos as possible. I look for friends who own them.

I find a new friend, Paula. She lives a few blocks away from me. We walk to each other’s houses and sometimes to school together. She doesn’t have a piano, but she laughs at all my jokes. There’s happiness in her heart, something I’m not used to at home. 

Mom laughs occasionally, but only when she’s with her friends or talking on the phone. The same with Dad. As a family we don’t laugh much. We don’t even talk much to each other except when Mom or Dad is reprimanding us or quizzing us about school or pressuring us on what we want to be when we grow up. 

I want to be a biologist, but when my older brother, Dan, says he wants to be a biologist, my mother says I have to pick something else. In this way, I won’t compete with him. Besides, it’s unlikely I’ll go to college because I’m a girl and girls are supposed to get married. 

Deep inside, I’m not marriage minded. I go ahead and choose architect. Dan switches to architect and again I’m told to choose something else. 

It’s 1969 and there are a lot of things going on in the world. Many careers a girl can choose from like stewardess, secretary, nurse, but engineer or doctor? Forget it! 

The Beatles have come and gone and as sinister as they might have appeared with their long hair and desire to hold every young girl’s hand, there’s something even more evil on the horizon. 

It’s the Stones. I’m twelve when Mick Jagger struts across the TV screen in our living room on every news station reporting his antics at Madison Square Garden, and without a doubt I know what I want to be when I grow up: rock star, but this time I don’t tell anyone. 

Comments

No comments on this item Please log in to comment by clicking here