In My Own Shoes: Words and music make wistful memories

My father worked hard. Six-and-a-half days a week. Every week, regardless of the weather or even if he had a cold, he worked. If he was tired, he never complained. He just worked.

On weekends, we all had dinner together as a family, but weeknights he never knew exactly when he’d be home. 6:30, 7, 7:30, sometimes even later. So on those nights following dinner with just Mom and me, we did not go our separate ways. Instead of going straight up to my room to study, she and I went into the living room ... because that’s where the piano was!

I did not play. There’s a good reason for that. My mother had learned to play as a young girl and wanted me to do the same, so despite my pleading for ballet lessons, she had a piano teacher come to the house. I hated him because he wouldn’t listen to me when I told him I could not understand what he was trying to teach. He just kept talking faster, trying to drown out my protestations about not “getting it.” His fingers would fly across the keys as he talked, talked, talked AT me. Since my hands weren’t getting it, and he wasn’t listening to me, I had no choice but to let my teeth do the talking, so, I bit him. End of piano lessons, beginning of ballet.

Mom, therefore, would be the one to play, and we would both sing aided by the wonderful sheath of sheet music buried deep in the piano bench. I loved the contents of that bench. It was a veritable treasure trove, for when I put my hand in, I’d never know what I might pull out. Mom had amassed a wide variety of songs ranging from the hits of the day like “Tammy,” “Que Sera, Sera,” or “Allegheny Moon,” along with those from an earlier time like “P.S. I Love You,” “For All We Know,” and “The Anniversary Waltz.” I’d look longingly at the photos of the vocalists on the covers of the sheet music, glamorous women like Patti Page and Rosemary Clooney in very ornate, flowing gowns, and I’d pretend that one day I might be one of them and have my photo on the cover in an equally beautiful dress fashioned of taffeta and lace.

However, neither Mom nor I had the kind of vocal chops that would ever get us on the cover of sheet music. Although we could both carry a tune, my mother knew how to change chords, and even take the rhythm up a notch. I loved that and thought she was the best piano player in the world. I also loved going to the music store to check out all the new “releases.” Most of them cost 60 cents back then; if it was a hit from a current Broadway show like “The King and I” or My Fair Lady,” it was usually a dollar. Thinking back now, I’m sure it was because of royalties, but as a child, I had no idea. I just felt it had to be very important and very special if it cost a whole dollar.

Sheet music was actually invented way back in 1473 and was the way musicians and vocalists alike could follow a song if they could not play or sing “by ear.” Still, there have been a surprising host of famous vocalists over the years who could not read sheet music at all — among them Jimi Hendrix, Paul McCartney, Irving Berlin, Elvis Presley, and Luciano Pavarotti. Today, like everything else, sheet music is still around, but most of it is now in digital form, and you pay each time you download it ... way more than a dollar!

I often wonder if any little girls these days are sitting on the piano bench with their mothers happily engaging on a rainy afternoon or evening just singing along, watching long, slender, beautifully manicured hands fly over the black-and-white keys. Back then we enjoyed a black-and-white kind of life. It wasn’t about the sheet music at all, really. It was about words like, “Que sera, sera, whatever will be, will be. The future’s not ours to see” that made you think and appreciate the present.

It was the words and music of our lives, and it made memories that would never go out of tune. Ever.

Rona Mann has been a freelance writer for The Sun for 21 years, including her “In Their Shoes” features. She can be reached at [email protected] or 401-539-7762.

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