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Growing up with an older brother (Garland) and two order cousins (Earle and
Harvey) who lived across the garden from us meant that I often was assigned to
the more inconsequential roles in games and sports. For
example Wholesale NFL Jerseys
China , all us neighbor kids played baseball in a clearing in our orchard;
actually, the clearing was the infield, and any ball hit out of the infield went
into the orchard. I was stationed to the right of 2nd base where a pear tree
grew about 10 feet behind the bag. I positioned myself securely behind the
trunk, placed my teeth firmly into the thumb of my baseball glove, and prayed
"Dear God, don't let the ball come to me". I kid you not; I still have that
glove, complete with the tooth marks of a seven-year-old. If I ever ventured
forth from the safely of that spot in the crotch of that comforting old pear
tree, I have no memory of it. I think I played out several seasons in that
position, which might partially explain why later, when I went out for high
school baseball, I was less than awesome. I tried to play shortstop like a
normal person, but when you're used to a pear tree shielding you from hard
ground balls and line drives, it's hard to get accustomed to standing out in the
open. I tried hard, too, not to bite my glove, but the taste of leather seemed
so soothing that it was a temptation I found difficult to resist. My baseball
career came to a crashing halt when I was playing for the 8th grade team at E.V.
Cain Elementary School. It was a pop fly to the infield, and the 2nd baseman and
I both called for the ball, then collided, allowing the ball to drop untouched
by human hands Wholesale NFL
Jerseys , in turn allowing the winning run to score. The incident itself
was common enough, but when really teed off my coach was that I apparently had
the thumb of my glove in my mouth while I was looking up at the ball. "Shinn, I
can't believe you had your glove in your mouth! If you need to suck your thumb,
find someplace else to do it. A baseball field is not the place." I suppose
that's why I took up the trombone. Nobody yells at you when you have a
mouthpiece in or around your mouth, and I didn't have to worry about line drives
or collisions with other band members. Besides, my big brother Garland played
the trombone, and he helped me get started. Tommy Dorsey was big in those days,
and he played a piece titled "Tromboneology" that Garland was learning, and that
intrigued me, too, with its' clever and jazzy moves. I visualized myself up on
the bandstand, adoring fans staring at me in starry-eyed adulation, playing the
great swing tunes of the day. I improvised deftly through the multi-faceted
chord changes of Cherokee, and then suavely broke into the smoothest version of
Stardust you could imagine. The crowd went wild. I could hardly finish my solo
before the thunderous applause drowned out the band. My fantasy-dream was rudely
interrupted by the annoyed voice of Mr. Newcomb, my 8th grade band director.
"Shinn, what in the world are you doing? The rest of us are playing "Stars And
Stripes Forever." Would you care to join us?" The rest of my trombone career
went somewhat better. In high school I worked my way up to 3rd chair, sitting
behind Sybil McKenna, the excellent fat first chair, and Ola Lee
Murchison Wholesale Jerseys China ,
the 6'6" skinny multi-talented athlete and 2nd chair (who went on to play
football for that new expansion team, the Dallas Cowboys), and ahead of a friend
named Gary, who wasn't much in music but later saved me from flunking chemistry
by cramming me full of formulas the night before the final. Even if we hadn't
sat in that order, you could always tell who the best trombonists were, as the
eyeballs of the rest of us would be titled toward them seeing what position
their slides were in. Trombonists can't turn their heads without moving their
slides, so eyeballs had to swivel dramatically to the left or right, depending
upon where the superior trombonists were sitting. But since we sat in the order
of our ability, all eyeballs of the entire section were leaning left, toward the
first and second chairs. I was the closest to the only two trombonists who could
read music, so I would watch Ola's slide, Gary would watch my slide, and so on
down the line. Our director once suggested that we would save on eyestrain if we
learned to read the notes ourselves, an idea that had not occurred to us until
then. I worked on that some, but found Ola's hand a more direct route to the
correct note. Nevertheless, between note reading and
eyes-left-to-Ola's-slide-reading, I did pretty well in high school band. Well
enough, in fact, that by my senior year I was selected as the third most likely
band member to succeed. A buddy named
Mike Wholesale Jerseys Cheap , a
wonderful tenor sax player, was chosen as most likely to succeed, followed by
Ola. And while we certainly appreciated the selections at the time, they turned
out to be fairly inaccurate. Neither Mike nor Ola nor I play our instruments
much anymore, but a kid who nobody noticed and played oboe; the only oboe in our
band; now plays with the Portland Symphony. Funny how things change as time goes
by. In our band building were a series of small practice rooms, with little
windows in each door so that you could look in to see if the room was occupied.
All sorts of wild and wonderful things went on in those little rooms, including
the conjugation of Latin verbs to the tune of the 1st three notes of
Rachmaninoff's Prelude in C# Minor. "Vini, vidi, vinos" we would sing in unison,
and then laugh so hard we thought we would throw up. Mr. Walker, the bachelor
choir leader, never thought it was funny, however, and we often found ourselves
ejected from the practice rooms. It was a wonderful learning aid for Latin,
however, and the "B" that I got from Miss Estes owed a great deal to those
musical conjugations. Author's Resource Box Duane Shinn is the author of the
popular free 101-week online e-mail newsletter titled Amazing Secrets Of
Exciting Piano Chords & Sizz.