And There I Stood with My Piccolo

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3. OF COURSE THE MAIN IDEA OF GOING to New York, aside from the forlorn hope of getting my piccolo straightened, was to study the flute with the world-famous flutist, the great Georges Barrere. He lived on Ninety-third Street near the Drive, and I was sure nervous on the way to his house on account of I'd been dreaming of studying the flute with him ever since the vague images of being a fireman, a great surgeon , a lawyer, and a bank president became lost in the realization that I was turning into a flute player. Mr. Barrere almost seemed to be expecting me, though, and his year-old blond baby Jean, crawling underfoot the whole time, kind of put me at my ease. We arranged for the lessons and then he phoned several of his real successful pupils like Lem Williams and Billy Kincaid—he's the cherry on top of Ormandy's Philadelphia Symphony— and asked them to help me get a job playing the flute someplace. 29 They advised me to go to the union every day with my flute under my arm, and sooner or later, they said, somebody would need a flute player in a hurry and might take a chance on me. Nobody spoke much English at the union. All the Italians gathered in the center under the clock, the Germans by the stairs, and the Russians under the balcony. I couldn't find any lowans anyplace, so I just circulated, you mightsay. One day a man with a wild look in his eye grabbed me and said, "You playa floor? Good. Standa youself under da clock." I waited for three hours and he came back looking sad."I finda not one floot butta you. You be my sospitute tonight atta da Wint' Card'." Well, whadayaknow! Me getting a job tosubstitute for the flute player at the Winter Garden! I dashed to the nearest Western Union office to send a telegram home to Mason City—PLAYING TONIGHT WINTER GARDEN—and rushed out to find the theater so I wouldn't be late. I had always thought the Winter Garden was somewhere near Times Square, but the directions the man gave me on a card told me to take the subway to Houston Street, which was hard to find, because I called it Hughston and all the New Yorkers called it Houseton. Anyway, that Winter Garden was in the Bowery and not famous at all. It was a combo picture 30 house and burleyque.upstairs over a kosher market , and I got home at one o'clock in the morning and found a telegram stuck in the door from Mason City: ALWAYS KNEW YOU'D MAKE GOOD. But I found another "sospitute" job the next week at the Crescent Theatre on Boston Road in the Bronx, Sol Klein leader. Mr. Klein was very nice to me and gave me the job steady, fifty-two fifty a week, which took care of the flute lessons and also allowed me to sign up for the morning classes at the Damrosch Institute. Whenever an important picture like Humoresque came along Mr. Klein would get the manager to let him augment the orchestra with a few extra musicians. Mr. Halperin was the manager and he did not by any means have a tin ear, since he was always standing in the back, listening to the music. Whenever the orchestra took an intermission, the pianist stayed in the pit and kept playing. But one time he wanted to get a malted down at Mr. Beitelman's stationery store—best malteds I ever tasted—and I slipped over onto the piano stool to fill in, glad of the chance to try over an exercise in sequence I had to have ready for the next morning's class at the Institute. I guess the exercise didn't fit the action on the screen any too well because Mr. Halperin came tearing down the aisle and told me—and the 31 people in the first three rows—so. I saved the exercise, however, and used it ten years later as the theme for a piece called "Thoughts while Strolling," dedicated to a remarkable man I was proud to know, named O. O. Mclntyre. Mr. McIntyre always wore purple pajamas, and Mrs. Mclntyre is a wonderful woman and sends me post cards from places like the deck of the...