Many are called, few are chosen.
Band, football and live oak acorns. Everyone lives out some version of Matthew 22:14
Somehow the scene under my Live Oak in the front yard here in Houston Texas is different this year. The acorns are knee deep and I don’t remember seeing even one last year. I believe it is a 30 year old tree and I found a story on line that said it should have started dropping acorns 10 years ago. In any case I looked up the correct process for activating the small bundles of tree programming for maximum chance of sprouting into a tree and planted the most promising. Many acorns will be destroyed by weevils, some taken away by squirrels, but nature demonstrates the miracle of abundance in the oversupply of these magical little pellets. An oversupply of acorns and an over supply of the soil and solar energy required to activate them. Especially here in Houston where the sun is plentiful and rain although not as often can be torrential once activated. So the tree and I are the same components arranged slightly differently,: hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen and carbon. The acorn follows its design without question. But I on the other hand had many choices to make along the way. It begs the question; what have I been called to and where has my success been.
Sometime in the late summer of 1972 Mom and I walked into the office of Cascade Junior High and completed my registration for the 7th grade. Jerry Hamm was at the counter as we entered and without looking at me, asked if I was trying out for basketball. I told him I was in 7th grade (because sports programs were only open to 8th and 9th graders). I was anxious to find out from the band teacher when I could join stage band and start playing saxophone. I had to wait until the first class and Mr. Weber explained that he did not have a stage band and preferred that junior high music be geared toward fundamentals. This was a foreshadowing of his very structured, disciplined classroom. The quote posted in cursive script above the blackboard read: “I am interested in results, not excuses.”
But the next year I did turn out the next year for eighth grade football led by Coach Hamm. I cannot remember at all how I found out the where’s and when’s of tryouts but sometime in late August I was on that football field, all arms and legs, but tall enough to be an imposing figure at the defensive tackle position. I played in every game except the last as a defensive tackle. During one practice I was faced with having to knock our center, Craig Franck, out of the way during linebacker drills. Somehow I timed it just right and knocked him out of the way. Coach Nelson was leading the drills and he screamed at me “Becker, that’s the best hit I’ve seen you make all year! Keep that up and you will be first string on BOTH sides of the ball.” Craig shrugged and got ready for the next drill, but my bell was rung, I was dizzy and at that moment I realized I never wanted to hit anyone that hard again. After the season Mr. Hamm found me in the halls between classes. He apologized for not getting me in the last game (which happened to be the team’s only win) and then looked at me very seriously and said,
“Becker, ya gotta get quicker.”
I smiled and nodded as he patted me on the shoulder and went on his way. The back of my mind was filled with the mud, rain, cold and the locker-room essence of dirt, grass and sweat at the end of football practice.
Despite the admonition about my lack of quickness, I was soon trying out for basketball which was never played in the rain and was my preferred sport anyway. Having a much smaller roster the team did not have room for my lanky lumbering frame. Coach Rich Lindsley delivered the news to me in the gym after the last tryout event. My only consolation was that I was the last player cut. After our chat he sent me into a scrimmage and I promptly sprained my ankle. My brother Steve and Gil Stuart carried me out to the car where Mom thought it was a ruse. But there I was, hobbled and humbled at my first rejection of anything I had tried to do. Later on Mr. Lindsley told me during one PE class that I should get married to the universal gym, the weight machine of the day. I had determined by that time that my interest in music outweighed by desire to play sports.
In the ninth grade Mr. Weber nominated me to participate in the Clark County Junior High Honor Band. I arrived at Jason Lee Junior High for the first rehearsal and slid into the last open chair I saw in the clarinet section, and we ran through the first couple of selections. Seems like there were three directors running us through the music and the third director had a sheet of paper in his hand as he approached the podium. Turns out the participating schools had sent recommendations about seating of participants. Mr. Weber had nominated me for first chair and the directors present had heard enough to agree, and I was instructed to move to first clarinet section. A few weeks later, during a woodwind sectional rehearsal, the director said how impressed he was with the woodwinds and that we had outplayed the brass section by a noticeable margin.
My first day of high school as a sophomore found me in concert band playing tenor sax. The band teacher, Mr. Stevenson, made a beeline for me after class and asked if I would like to play tenor sax in stage band. I told him yes and needing a second tenor player he moved the paperwork along for me to join the 1st period class. So that year I kept my saxophone neck strap on for first and third period. Junior year I dropped concert band and just played first tenor in stage band. By that time, I was working evenings to try to keep gas in the tank of my 1953 Chevrolet and spent virtually no time practicing. It was Mr. Stevenson’s last year of teaching music and I figured it would be my last of playing in band.
Fast forward 25 years and I am the father of two boys, Ryan, and Evan whose maternal grandfather earned varsity letters in football, basketball, track and tennis at Washington State University. Both boys were part of championship teams, Ryan in baseball and Evan in soccer. Perhaps the greatest complement to their sportsmanship came from their long time PE teacher, Joe Dilly. At Ryan’s 8th grade graduation, he said to me, “Dave, I never heard a whine or complaint from either of your boys. No matter what the game was, if they were knocked down or got their bell rung somehow, they would always pop right back up, shake it off and get back in the game. If I told everyone to take a lap in the rain, they ran and did not squawk at all about it.”
Sometime in high school Ryan decided to pick up a guitar and start playing. Ryan had beautiful technique and was willing to play for hours to get something right. Self-taught for several months I asked if he wanted to take lessons. We were soon on the campus of Pacific Lutheran University for a meeting with a well-known guitar teacher. In their first meeting he asked Ryan just to play something he had been working on. A few bars into the audition the instructor stopped him and said, “I will teach you anything you want to play, as long as you hire me as your manager.” I had finally thought that the guitar had chosen him. But like many musicians, a brilliant mind is less likely to be satisfied.
Several weeks after planting the acorns I thought my process had failed but upon further inspection the sprouts are taking root, following a design that I suppose is tens of millions of years old. They might spend a season or two in these small pots before I find a larger pot or less likely a place to plant them. In an almost ironic twist I have been asked to play the saxophone for a few events with which my lovely wife is associated. The old jazz standards are much easier with a blue tooth speaker and a YouTube connection. No Kenny G, no dance music, just an hour of dinner music and a beer in return. Whatever Mr. Weber might have thought about a recorded backup, those junior high musical origins are finding some use 1,700 miles away in banquet halls around the Houston metro area.
