Blog 5 April 7 2013 Gratitude

It's The Lord's Day.  The 2nd Sunday of Easter.  Did you know there are 7 Sundays of Easter?  Fifty days passed from Jesus' resurrection to His ascension.  Pentecost meaning fiftieth day.  And on Pentecost the Holy Spirit 'fell' on the believers.  Thanks be to God!
I'm titling this blog, Gratitude and intending to recall stuff for which I'm thankful.  Not only the obvious but some things I take for granted.  This may become introspective  so feel free to X this out and go read a book or mow the lawn.     C U Later?
I'm thankful for music.  I'm told that as a 2 or 3 year old I stood in the car on the trip from Nashua to Richland and would sing and clap to 'Deep in the Heart of Texas."  The stars at night, Are big and bright. Clap, clap, clap,clap;  Deep in the Heart of Texas.  The prairie sky is wide and high, Clap clap clap clap, Deep in the heart of Texas.  There was a player piano in the Mortensen's Cafe in Richland where mom worked that I loved to have them load up with a roll so I could flip the play switch and watch and listen to the keys playing all by themselves that great ragtime special, Alexander's Rag time Band.  Someone must have pushed on the pedals for me too.  Later I was taught, and I use that term loosely but lovingly, for these were not formal teaching experiences. To continue, I'm about 9 or 10 now and mom and I live in the building she bought to house the Post office and where she and husband George, 1952, later lived and ran Squires Grocery. But while it was just mom and me and the P.O.  folks would come in and wait for their mail to be sorted.  It came on the train then and altho it's 'no way to run a railraod'  the train was often not on time, but when it tooted everyone waited a while and then 'came on down' to get the mail.'  Our living quarters were  behind a flimsy 3/8 inch plywood partition 8 ft, high and the ceilings were 10 or 12 ft. high.  People liked to come back there for a visit. It was visually private but not audibly so much. My first thanx goes to Bob Collins,a friend of mom's, for bringing the piano, a Kimball with an 1895 tuning date inside, to our house to store it but then never took it along when he left.  Second...   Thank you Marie Settera for coming on back and teaching me to play the chords in the key of C. Her dad played the fiddle and she was good at 'by ear" playing.  She was in eighth grade then. The third thank you is for  Kate Sodnak.  Kate in my eyes was an old lady then.  She'd had polio years before and was left with one leg much shorter than the other causing her to walk with a pronounced limp.  She had small feet that were no doubt painful, and wore  ladylike oxford type lace up shoes with one having been built up in an attempt to account for the problem.  Kate could play the keyboard accordian.  Hers was a small one and she later gave it to Tootsie.  She and husband Oscar had known Tootsie since she was a baby, having lived near the Bondy's out on the farm.  Kate would sit down at our piano and play "old time waltzes."  The one I learned from her was titled in Norske, 'Levitiefinnsskogen.'  The spelling is phonetical and is sposed to mean,  Life in the Finn Woods. According to Garrison Keilor I learned years later that the Norwegian fellas were lumberjacks over in Finland and that song was about their escapades while there.  Tootsie played it too and some of the older fellows would put a quarter down on the piano and have us play that waltz for them..  That was the extent of out repertoire.  Thank you number 4...music class in school... we learned the treble clef was FACE on the spaces and
Every Good Boy Does Fine on the lines of the treble staff.  Number 5 thanks goes to late night radio over Del Rio Texas,I heard the advertisement for the Dean Ross Piano Course for only $2.98    I ordered it and voila... octave chord, chord, for 3/4 time and octave chord.octave,chord for 4/4 time.  Also a color coded chord selector that fit over an octave in the bass clef and that's pretty much it for the education that's produced so much joy in my life.  A few old hymnbooks of mom's and stacks of sheet music belonging to Mrs.Tess Omundson whose husband was my 6th grade teacher, were my practise books.  On the stage of the gym in the basement of the Richland schoolhouse on the hill,(it's still there)  I plinked my way throught recesses and noon hours on the piano.  Recesses 10;30 til 10:45  2:30 to 2:45  Noon hour was an hour, 12 til 1:00.  We ate at home.  School from 9: to 4:00.  Number 6 will be for cousin Elinor and how could I have forgotten her teaching me the synchopated rhythm of Mr. Whatchacallit whatcha doin' tonight?  With both hands yet!  It's better known as "In The Mood."  Then there's the all time school kid favorite of Doctor, Doctor Can You Tell?
I did take one quarter of lessons my second year of college at Havre but by then my bad habits were pretty much ingrained.  Later when Vicki took lessons in  about'79 or 80  from Mrs. Alvin Kliewer, Elizabeth, in Lustre I attempted some again and I suppose the most that can be said is that. every little bit helps.  So with heartfelt gratitude I say thank you Dean, Tess, Elinor and Elizabeth, and the very patient lady at Northern Mt college circa 1956/7 who's name I disremember.  Because of you I now enjoy playing for chuch services each Sunday for our little congregation here in Nashua Mt, Grace Lutheran LCMC.  How do we ever know or realize when we've been blessed to be a blessing?  Many thousand thanks,  Munga tussen takke.  :)  And heaven and nature sing!