Piano Lessons

Piano playing runs in my family and so does forgetfulness.

Both of my grandmothers played the piano. One played for the silent movies at or near what is now Village Lanes in Gloucester. The other forced me to sit beside her on the piano bench and sing songs like "Bobby Shaftoe's gone to sea, silver buckles on his knee, he'll come back and marry me, pretty Bobby Shaftoe." This same grandmother forced me to take piano lessons.

My teacher lived in the farmhouse at what is now Queens Creek Marina near the American Legion Hall. Her name was Miss Janice, and she was also my kindergarten teacher at that cinder block building right next to the A&P, now Food Lion. I loved her but was not a fan of her dog Cujo.

Back when I first started this blog I wrote about Cujo piano lessons and the time my mother drove past me about seventy hundred times because she kept forgetting me where she was going. I was sitting on a fence on the side of Route 198--the very road she was driving on. Waiting.

If you click here not only will you read that story but you'll also see the first official comment from Meg of Soup Is Not a Finger Food, and one of the earlier ones from Ms. Foolery, too. Baby Sis tosses in her two cents but forgets to sign her name to the comment.

And now here is Chesapeake Bay Mother with her version of the same story.

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PREOCCUPATION STATION *
by Chesapeake Bay Mother

"Once upon a time there was a little girl whose mother dropped her off for piano lessons in the large white house at the end of a winding lane not far from where they lived. The little girl took her lesson and waited for Mother. No one came.

She walked to the end of the winding lane hoping to meet her mother on her way to get her. It didn't happen.

The big white fence at the end of the lane was just right for sitting and watching for her mother, who would surely be coming soon. And so she did.

Cars went by-this way and that. And then it happened. The VW Vanagon ** appeared with Mother at the wheel...and drove right past. A few minutes later, it came back...and drove right past. After passing her daughter more times than a bull does a matador, Mother was able to focus really hard and drove in to get her.

The moral to this story is: Mothers don't come with a warning label; but maybe we should and the warning should read, "This medication is intended to cure all your ills and leave you with no side effects. However on rare occasion it may leave you sitting on a fence."

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* CBW wishes to suggest that Preoccupation Station is the first stop on a one-way trip to Dysfunction Junction.

**CBW also wishes to clarify that the driver of a lime green VW bus abandoned her on the side of the road. The Vanagon came along much to her horror when she had her driver's license. Ergo she would have driven herself to said scarring life event piano lesson.

No side effects indeed.

p.s. Dear CB Mother: Last week I drove past CB Daughter's soccer practice where I was supposed to pick her up. Three miles later I remembered and turned around.

I understand. Completely.