Death by Piano
Sixty-five years later, I still shudder every time I drive by the house. It was there on Campus Road across the street from Occidental College that I gave my first and last piano recital. Six months prior to the recital my mother and I were in a music store where I started fooling around with the keys of one of the pianos. The salesperson was quick to remark, “He certainly takes right to it doesn’t he.” In a manner of a few days the piano was sitting in our living room and I was signed up to take lessons from Paul Moncur’s mother who lived eight houses down from us. I had just turned seven years old and already knew I had no future when it came to music. My second grade class was rehearsing a song as part of a program for parents when the teacher took me aside and suggested I simply mouth the words rather than attempt to sing them. I took no offense to this or to the reprimands from Mrs. Moncur since I was innocent of any wrongdoing. I simply had come int