Music and Keeping Time

Music and Keeping Time……………….

My junior high school wasn’t quite another “Blackboard Jungle” but it came damn close. The eighth grade class was comprised mostly of guys who were “good with their hands”. That’s the way Mrs. Arthur, our art teacher, used to put it. Those of us who were not good with our hands understood her omission of the rest of the sentence which was “and not good with their heads.” Like our Mexican neighbors today, only a few of us would be blessed and enter the portals of higher education. We were the inner city kids, left behind in the 50’s rush to the suburbs.

Mr. Watson, our band and instrument instructor, was well-liked by both the good hands group and the rest of us, guys and girls alike. His thin, middle-aged frame carried an easy, broad smile throughout the otherwise cheerless, hard core blue collar corridors of the old gray building. “Bayard School” they named it in honor of a U.S. Senator who had served Delaware during the Civil War Reconstruction era. In 1956, Ed Watson, as the other teachers called him, was a breath of lighter air for us fourteen year olds, cursed in those years with the attention spans of cross-eyed ferrets.

A talented piano player himself, our Mr. Watson would lead music classes in the standard song book, often crowning the coda with an impromptu jazz riff. He would then slyly peek up from the keyboard, his grin widening, as we students roundly applauded his jazzy efforts at education and, thankfully, a little entertainment as well. But he wasn’t always that way and, as it turned out, that was not a bad thing.

A fledgling trumpet player, I was also a member of the school band, a group of nearly 50 kids, most of them of the “good with their heads” type. Mr. Watson would lead us in 8:00 A.M. bleary-eyed rehearsals several times a week. I was also required, as a band member, to take a half hour lesson with our dedicated instructor one day each week. As seems so often the case with the talented and humorous ones, our Mr. Watson had a dark side too. When the band’s efforts didn’t meet his expectations, he would suddenly hurl his music stand, music, and even his baton, right out into our scurrying midst. A staccato stream of profanity, not generally heard from the other teachers, would then follow our hasty, forced retreat. These outbursts would leave the girls in the flute and clarinet sections teary-eyed. We trumpet and other horn guys considered ourselves a tougher breed and so we just quietly quaked in our Flag Flyer shoes. A rapid dismissal always ensued with the florid-faced Watson storming toward the exit, his music stand, sans music, remaining awkwardly stretched out on the floor in the offending instrument section. Though an unusual occurrence, it was not a pleasant way to begin the day and, in general, the summer music schedule was mercifully different.

During the summer following 8th grade, I took my trumpet lessons at Mr. Watson’s home. Still once a week, I would ride one bus and then transfer to another for an additional 20 block ride to get to their Victorian, two story residence. On good days the trip was about 40 minutes but there were transfers, often missed, that caused long delays in my scheduled 10:00 A. M. arrival, i.e., I was nearly always late.

Mr. Watson and his wonderful wife, whom he addressed as “Mrs. Watson” in my presence, always greeted me with a smile in spite of my lateness. Both also quickly added their version of the admonition, “Be on time, Jim. When you’re late, you ruin our schedule for the rest of the day.” Like any fourteen year old, I would smile just a little, apologize a lot and take my silver horn out of its dented, black case. The way I saw it, I, at least, was ready to play through the lateness problem.

The Watsons kept a manicured home. “A place for everything” etc. On at least several occasions I heard my teacher exclaim that “a clean ship is a happy ship.” Those who manned the Watson ship were also impeccable in their personal dress. My maestro never wore shorts, sandals or other casual wear during our sessions, although he was never without a Camel in one hand and a hot coffee in the other. His wife too was always in a dress; her auburn hair pulled tightly back and held by long, dark braids. Each was the kind of example that parents, at least my own parents, prayed for in public school teachers and their families. And during these summer lessons the Ed Watson sense of humor and light-hearted banter consistently shined through, making me a better horn player, until late August, 1956….a time that I will never forget.

I was late for my lesson again that hot August morning as I jaunted up onto the Watson porch and softly struck the knocker on the faded green door. Almost immediately, the door was opened and out stepped Mr. Watson, his wife hovering just behind him. His appearance tightened my jaw. A graying white terry cloth robe surrounded him but barely covered his hairy chest and upper belly. He obviously hadn’t shaved, showered or even combed his straggly, thin hair. No glasses on, he squinted into the morning sun and muttered through a dangling cigarette, “C’mon in.” When I glimpsed Mrs. Watson, her hair hanging down far past her shoulders and nothing close to a smile on her face, I knew it was going to be a long morning. I was late but not stupid.

As my teacher threw himself into a recliner in the living room, now exposing skinny, hairy legs that lead down into dirty gray slippers, he declared, “No lesson today, Jim. You wanna know why?” Before I could find my own seat or begin to answer him, he looked into the ceiling, blew a puff of smoke upward and told me. “It’s because Mrs. Watson and I are going to be late today. You see, we have no intention at all of being on time for you. We’re deciding on the schedule this morning and we don’t care who doesn’t like it, you included. Now, we know that this will inconvenience you, that it might even anger you a bit because you probably got up a little earlier than you would have otherwise but frankly, Jim, we just don’t give a damn! ,neither one of us. No sense in your waiting around, the way we see it, until I shave, get dressed and get downstairs again. You might as well face it; we’re too late to get anything accomplished and today, we could care less anyway. What do you think about that? Why don’t you let us know how that makes you feel.” My nervousness had made his figure a blur but his words resonated in my head. He then slowly pulled his glasses on, leaned forward in his chair and stared straight at my face as he sipped from his coffee. Mrs. Watson had taken the sofa right next to her husband and with her legs crossed and her arms folded across her robed chest, she too zeroed in on me. She kept running her hands through her matted hair, as if her husband’s pointed comments were not enough to deal with in what now felt like a very crowded room. I felt my knees giving in and I swallowed hard before any words would come.

“Mr. Watson, I began. I am really sorry, just like I told you out in the hall. It’s my fault, I know and I also know that I’ve let you down this summer by being late. Please let me apologize again…I mean it.”

“Then I suppose that you always meant it, all eight times….or was it more than eight?”, he shot back at me. I was really missing that Watson smile now. There wasn’t even a hint of it in his words or his demeanor. Never betraying the lesson, Mrs. Watson sat in total silence as he proceeded. “Being late is rude, Jim. “ I have no idea whether your mother or father knows about what’s been going on this summer but we’re sure as hell fed up with it here on 27th Street.” he went on and being late is being arrogant too; it’s taking other people for granted and relying on their manners to carry the day and not your own. Saying ‘sorry’ won’t cut it, kid. Stop being sorry and stop being a sorry excuse for a considerate person.” There was a pause for effect and then he boomed “Now!”

I could only stammer a few “okay, okay”s and “yes, sir”s as I backed from the living room into the hall and turned for the door, my trumpet case and my head hanging low. “Bye”, I said over my shoulder as I grabbed hold of the doorknob. Nobody answered as I quickly shut the door behind me and hurried for the bus stop.

It’s extraordinary when I’m late nowadays. On those very few occasions, however, I never fail to see that robed and bearded vision before me, staring through the cigarette’s haze, his more-recently rough-looking mate at his side nodding her amens.

I went on to play trumpet professionally years later. It paid my way through college and helped pay the bills in the early years of my first marriage. In spite of the trauma inflicted that morning years ago, I remain thankful for the Watson conspiracy and it’s ever lasting lesson.

A great teacher can do that.

Story ID:	3242
Written by:	jim rambo (bio, contact, other stories)
Story type:	Biography
Location:	wilmington Delaware USA
Year:	1956
Person:	Ed Watson, Maestro