My Music: Explorations of Music in Daily Life

ELDERS

E L D E R S This page intentionally left blank K E N a . . . when I wasin theservice, when wehad the band playing, it instilled a lot of things in you." Ken is a disabled sL\ty-five-year-old. He is a retiredArmy major and a retired factory worker. He was interviewed by a student working part time at the group residence where Ken lives. Q: Who arc you? A: I'm just an ordinary citizen now. I'm just one of the boys, I guess. I'm a father, a husband, and I was a family provider up until the time I got the way I am. I'm not able to go out and earn a living anymore, you know, and do the things I want to do, so I put everything on the back burner. Q: So you had a full life? A: Well, I think I had a pretty full life. I did more or less what I wanted to do. We bought a home, we had two kids, and I have a very good wife, an understanding wife, and she still is.We were able to raise two boys, give them an education, which we felt was pretty good. The youngest one is home yet, the other one is married. He is raising his own family now. One is twenty-six and the other is twenty-three. Q: Did music influence your children while they were growing up? A: I was alwaysinterested in playing an instrument, although I never did. I did have an accordion when I was small but I never learned how to play. I was fascinated by it. The notes and the music were fascinating so I joined the drum corps. Played the snare drum for about ten years. We used to go to all the parades and the count}' fairgrounds and all the state fairs. Q: Was this while you were married? A: Before I was married, I was about twenty-six years old when I met my wife. Then I put everything on the back burner. It wasallsingles, you know. They'd drink and playfor somebody, somebody would throw ten Elders I 189 bucks on the bar, then we'd all march around the bar buying drinks for everyone. Now I look back and I say what the hell did I do that stuff for? On hot days in the summertime your tongue would be sticking out while you're marching. You could be under a tree somewhere having a beer instead of in the street marching. Q: This must have been very important to you. A: Well, it was fun, it was something to do. The guys I hung around with, all they wanted to do was drink beer and they would go from gin mill to gin mill and that was their big thing. The beer in here wasn't good enough, they would have one or two here and then go somewhere else and have one or two more and before you knew it they were loaded and everything else and I didn't have any fun. What the hell, I had to take care of five drunken guys and that's no fun.Little by little I sort of went into the fire company there, to play with the drum corps. It was something , you know. There were a lot of guys and everybody wanted to do something with you. You didn't have to drink but everybody liked to drink. You know those firemen guys, that was the big thing, when they tapped a barrel of beer, everyone, everyonewould stay till the barrel was finished . . . but that's where you would learn to play the snare drum. Q: Who taught you to play the drum? A: We had a drum instructor there, and we had a corps instructor, but I don't remember his name. He was the guy who led us up there. Did you ever see the guy with the big baton? He was our leader, and the other guy was the drum major, he told us how to play the drum. Each instrument had its own major. There was afifemajor, a bugle major, and so on. He was the guy on the right flank you took allyour cues from.The guy up there would blow the whistle and tell you what you were going to play next, cither...