And There I Stood with My Piccolo

9

9. WELL, AFTER SOUSA AND THE RIALTO, I joined that obstinate, stubborn, spoiled, conceited, pampered, gorgeousinstrument known as the Philharmonic Symphony Society of New York, being conducted in those years by Willem van Hoogstraten , Willem Mengelberg, and Wilhelm Furtwaengler . I had joined this great orchestra as second flute, but one week before I was to begin this new job, John Amans, the first flute, got appendicitis and went to Europe to recuperate, so I ended up hearing the first symphony concert I'd ever gone to (not counting the matinee the Minneapolis Symphony once played in Mason City High School, to break the jump to Des Moines) from the chair of the first flute. Anyhow, the first number the Philharmonic played that night was Beethoven's "Leonore," which we had rushed through rather sketchily at the rehearsal on account of everybody (but me) had played it a million times. At the concert I was 61 a dude in a canoe shooting the rapids for the first time, jagged rocks every place right under the boat, but because I didn't know they were there I just leaned back and enjoyed it. At the end of the overture the orchestra applauded and Van Hoogstraten, the conductor, rattled his baton against his stand. He was smiling and gesturing somewhere back of me, I thought, so I started to applaud, too, and looked around to see what I was missing. The world's greatest piccolo player, Ernie Wagner , who sat next to me, said, "Get up and bow— whatsamatterwithyou? I did—as nonchalantly as possible—and early the next morning rushed over to ask my teacher, Mr. Barrere, if they always did that to a new member. "What overture was it?" he said, and I said, " 'Leonore' by Beethoven." Well, he started to laugh and rocked back and forth so furiously that his favorite chair, with him in it, turned a complete somersault and ended up upside down in the corner, his famous Parisian beard waving helplessly at the ceiling. He finally managed to say, "That overture has in it one of the most celebrated flute solos in the whole symphonic repertoire." I helped the world's greatest flutist to his feet and his little boy, Jean, who was four years old 62 by now, laughed and laughed, too, and for the first time I wasn't scared to death of my teacher. "Mr. Barrere," I said, "how come you sort of seemed to expect me that first day I walked into your apartment and you were so especially nice to me, helping me get a job and all?" He took a letter out of his desk which my mother had written him the day I left Mason City several years back, a typical mother's letter— "Take care of my boy, please. Help him to meet good people." You know, all those things a mother would write. Then I got good and scared all over again that Mr. Barrere might have figured that Mama was butting in and I was embarrassed and why are kids so dumb at that age? Most people are scared an awful lot of the time —scared of any kind of change, scared of meeting new people, scared of the boss, scared of headwaiters —and when you look at somebody successful you say to yourself, "He's not scared of meeting new people and new things and the boss. That's probably why he's a success." Then one day you discover that he is scared, all right, but only manages to fool people into thinking he's not. "Hey," you say to yourself, "this is a very important secret about how to be a success." But the funny part is, you keep right on being scared of new people and changes and the boss, only pretending you're not and isn't that too bad? 63 Looking back to school days, how scared we used to be of the teacher. We know now that she was just as scared of us, maybe worse, and if we could just get that through our thick skulls we'd live longer and happier. I honestly believe my life span has been considerably shortened because of silly suffering on a couple of occasions for no reason except being scared of people. The worst of all was once in the old high school building. Funny how everything about that building...