I miss my cello. One of the girls across the hall from my suitemates is taking cello lessons this semester, presumably for their Performing & Creative Arts graduation requirement. The same one that I am fulfilling by taking a year of folk dance. Heh.
I started cello in the fourth grade because I wanted to take a stringed instrument, and Mrs. L (I can't remember any more of her last name now...) suggested I take cello because my fingers were so fat. Yes, I have short, fat, stumpy, chubby fingers. But they're still cute. So are my toes. My ex used to call me Stubby Toes. Bet you wanted to know that about me...
So I spent an entire year carting my cello to school. Up a hill. Up a very large hill. It makes me sigh when I see little kids with luggage carts for their backpacks. I just want to say in my old geezer voice, "When I was your age, sonny, I had to carry not only my heavy backpack filled with books for every subject, but also my cello!! Up a very large hill!! In the snow, ten feet deep!! BAREFOOT!!!" Hehe.
Ask my mother about the snow where she grew up in upstate New York. And about being a slave to the fashion of the mid to late 60s, with their mini-skirts. In the winter. In literally ten feet of snow. The things we women do to ourselves to appear attractive...
But we were discussing my cello. Being as tall as I was in the fourth grade, I had to get a ¾ size cello, while my fellow female cellist got a tiny ½ size. She was tiny too. By the time we moved to Illinois when I was in fifth grade, I needed a full-sized cello. I was a big girl. :o)
We had practice every Friday. One of the boys in my class was Tony. Tony had... issues. I think by that time he was asking to be called Anthony, but either way, bad images were conjured up whenever anyone mentioned his name. It wasn't all his fault... When he was small, his parents gave him up for adoption to his grandparents, and his grandmother was always certain her son could do no wrong. Ever. So when he threw an ice chunk at me the size of a loaf of bread during the blizzard of '87, he ran home to Nana shrieking that I had done it (Think Sid in Toy Story: "She's lying!! Whatever she says, I didn't do it!!"). So by the time Marty called down to his nana, she was very indignant that HER little boy would never do such a thing!! Marty got pissed and told her that if he ever came up to the cul-de-sac, she'd call the cops on him.
I think Tony ended up in military school.
Anyhow, so Tony would cut up during strings class. He played the violin, but held it so far down that his forearm rested on his thigh.
I always yelled at him whenever he made a ruckus, and once he told me that he wouldn't mind my being his mommy.
That boy had issues.
At the end of the year, the awards ceremony was held in the gym. It was a hot, sticky, nasty day, and it was even hotter in the gym with all the students and faculty packed in -- don't ask me why they didn't air-condition the schools in northern Virginia in the 80s. My butt was starting to fall asleep from sitting on the vinyl floor when they announced the winner of the award for most improved in the strings class. Me. I leapt up and ran to the front of the impromptu staging area. I remember turning a sharp corner and letting out a sound that was partway a sob and partway a laugh. ME! I had won an award!!
See, that whole year was a hard one for me. I was Little Miss Misbehaved. I was one of those bad kids who couldn't have their desks in groups with everyone else's -- mine was shoved against the blackboard in the front of the room. My nearest neighbor was Karli, and I didn't like her anyhow. My name went up on the board every day, which meant I lost half of recess, and most days I got a check also, which meant losing all of recess. Some days I even got a second check -- I had to call home and tell them how I had misbehaved in class. Not very effective in my case... but that's another story.
So to be recognized above all in front of folks that weren't too enthused by my presence was almost too much for me. I think I glowed for a few weeks.
I wonder where that trophy is now...
TGP is here again for some more Tuesday night hangin', and I am going to share with him the glory that is Angelina. We're watching Foxfire.
'Night, y'all...