Back in the days when there wasn’t much commercial entertainment not, at least, in small Kansas towns it was a tradition in our high school for each class to present some kind of program for the rest of the student body. Although our school was small we had a nice auditorium with a real stage and all the “trimmings.” A couple of times a month all we students in grades 7 through 12 were herded into the auditorium for some kind of program. During football and basketball seasons we often had “Pep” Assemblies the afternoon before our big ball games. This was in a time before “cheerleaders” were essentially a choreographed dance team. Our cheerleaders were there to lead us through cheers we all knew. They were, of course, cute girls. They wore “outfits” designed to attract and hold attention – especially of hormonally active high school boys: Circular skirts that flared nicely when the girls pirouetted, showing pleasant expanses of not-often-seen anatomy. Beneath their skirts they wore tights, thereby preserving essential modesty and above them bulky pullover letter sweaters. Their sweaters while not particularly “form-fitting” were made of a yarn that caused them to lie heavily upon their upper body except where biological outcroppings supported them.
Our pep assemblies were raucous with lots of student participation but a dozen or so times during the year we would gather in the auditorium, usually for one of the class-sponsored programs and occasionally for an educational talk or demonstration. For those we filed in quietly and remained quiet throughout the program.
In the spring of 1945 it became our 8th Grade Class’s turn to present a program. For this we did a variety show with various groups or individuals in our class doing something or other. I don’t recall what the rest of our program was, however since I had been taking piano lessons for several years, I was called upon to play an Irving Berlin song called “Always.” When the assembly ended the music teacher, Miss Griffith, found me and said, “You know how to read the bass clef, don’t you?” After affirming the obvious she asked me if I would like to be in the band. I jumped at the chance. Miss Griffith took me into the band room showed me a sousaphone and told me the band needed someone to play it. “Since you read bass clef you’ll have no trouble learning to play it,” she cooed. So I “volunteered” to become a sousaphone player. She took me to a mirror, showed me how to put that huge mouthpiece up to my lips and “buzz,” which is simply blowing through tightened lips and making a sort of buzzing sound. Next she gave me a fingering chart and put me into the sousaphone. (One “wears” a sousaphone.) I took the monstrous piece of brass tubing home, took it to my upstairs bedroom and learned how to play it well enough to make it into the band for my freshman year.
Coincidentally a big old Swede who had been in the Navy during WWII was hired to replace Miss Griffith. Mr. Nordstrom he was and if ever there was a born music teacher he was it. Kids and parents alike absolutely loved him. Over the next few years he became my idol and mentor. I decided I wanted to be a school band director. As I entered my junior year Mr. Nordstrom promoted me to “First Chair” of the bass section. Then, in my senior year my fellow band members elected me band president.
In the fall of 1950 I entered Wichita State University as an instrumental music major. As I began my junior year the band director moved me up to First Chair in the University Band’s tuba section. I planned to graduate in 1954 and become another “Mr. Nordstrom” somewhere in Kansas. The Chinese and North Korean Communists had some different plans for me. In early June, 1953 the draft board told me my number was coming up. By an act of God (not coincidence in my book) I learned that there was a fine military band stationed in Ft. Sheridan IL, just outside Chicago and that if I passed an audition I could enlist directly into that band. A few weeks later I was sweating out basic training in the Kansas heat of July in Ft. Riley KS but I was on my way to The Fifth Army Band.
I spent three years in that band and again, by an act of God, met a beautiful, musically talented Italian girl who lived in Chicago. She became my wife one week after I was discharged from the Fifth Army Band. We returned to Wichita where I finished my senior year as music major. Sadly, all my old friends had long since graduated but the company of my wife more than compensated for their presence in my life. Since her parents lived in Chicago and mine in southeastern KS we took a U.S. map and found a halfway point between our parents. I took a job as band director in the Altamont IL school system. I was given a supplemental contract to keep the band busy in the summer by presenting weekly concerts on the town square. My total income then would be $4,300.00 for eleven months of teaching.
After two years in Altamont I took on the job of starting the band program in a brand new junior high school in a large school district in the northwest suburbs of Chicago. Five years later I was about as close to being a second “Mr. Nordstrom” as I would ever get. My band kids were like a second family to me and their parents had formed a “Band Boosters Club” and raised enough money to provide brand new uniforms for the band. This is where my music teaching/band directing career should have stayed but, like my Grandpa Carriker, I had a tendency to see “rainbows on the horizon.” I left that school district after seven years and became band director for a large high school in the Wichita suburb of Haysville KS. However the luster was gone from my being a band director. The “Cuban Missile Crisis” was a turning point in my life. It made me believe that I was “called” to more important things than teaching kiddies how to play a “clarinet.”
I went back to the University of Wichita and began working on a Master of Arts Degree in School Administration. I wanted to make a positive difference in the quality of American Education. The Pennsylvania Dutch were reputed to have a saying that sums up the wisdom of my choice at that time: “Too soon ve grow old, too late ve grow schmart.” It took a few years for me to realize it but I had turned my back on the most enjoyable of all the 36 years I spent in Education. Basically I spent the rest of my days as an Educator looking for “The Golden Fleece.” At different times I was a College Professor, a Grant Writer for a University, a Principal, an Asst. Supt. for Instruction and finally a school superintendent. In each of those situations I learned one way or another that “Education” is a stumbling giant whose course cannot be altered by “man.” It has a life of its own.
There was an anecdote making the rounds when I was a young man. It went like this: “Rip Van Winkle, upon awakening from his 30 year sleep went into the town and was terrified by all the new things. In a panic he ran and ran until he came to the local school building. He ran into that building, sat down, looked around and caught his breath. Then he let out a huge sigh and said, “Thank God, nothing in here has changed a bit.”