1. When I was a small child, I listened to the mournful call of the trains passing by my grandmother's house and loved that sound. My mother had been raised also by those tracks. In sadness I watched the world change from a place where trains were necessary and part of the romantic landscape. I did not know a job as Coordinator of the Suffolk Seaboard Museum would be mine for three lovely years at the end of my working life. That restored train station became a place of comfort for me. A place of beauty, and a connection with the past. As I sat in the office, CSX would barrel by just a few yards away on the tracks where once passenger cars had been pulled by steam locomotives. It was a thread pulled into the fabric. (For an age-old post on my time there, and the station itself, please click HERE and for the Suffolk Seaboard Station website, click HERE and for some great photos HERE --one gives you the view of the tracks next to the station!).
2. When I was growing up, Mom listened to classical music and sometimes show tunes and popular tunes from the fifties. Dad was the country music fan (and I still love the older country music) but Mom loved the classics. My exposure to this music had a great impact on me. We even went to see Van Cliburn in concert when I was about fourteen. I have always loved to sing, and to listen to all kinds of music, but I never learned to play an instrument, even though Mom tried to teach we kids piano when we were younger. It just didn't "take." She had played since she was a child. Still, I continued to listen to classical music over the years.
When we moved to Texas, and my husband had a heart attack and was unable to start the job that had taken us there, I began to look for work. We were living in a small town close to Giddings, and also not terribly far from the smaller Round Top. Round Top was a historic little town with museums and shops and we went to visit one day and picked up a tongue-in-cheek little paper about the area. In it was an ad for The International Festival-Institute located right there in Round Top! In a tiny little hamlet in the Central/East area of Texas known mainly for its enormous Round Top Antique Fair event every fall...see the link HERE....there existed a wonderful music institute! I applied for a job, and landed a position as Administrative Assistant to the Artistic Director and Founder (renowned pianist James Dick) and for the next five years was in absolute HEAVEN! An older post of mine of my time there is HERE. During the summer music students came from all over the world for six weeks to study under the best musical artists in the world, and to present concerts to the public. During the winter months there were concerts by guest artists, and seminars on various subjects like herbs, architecture and art. As well as working each day in the office, I was able to attend every concert and forum. It was one of the most incredible experiences of my life. I made wonderful friends whom I miss. My life during a very stressful time of my hubby's inability to find any work there after the heart attack knocked him out of a lucrative flying position was greatly enriched by Festival Hill! For their website, go HERE. Be sure to take the Virtual Tour and see more photos! (I was able to see James Dick in Tucson a couple of years ago when he came to perform with the symphony here, and that was such a great treat!)
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| Chandelier and carved wooden ceiling of the Festival Concert Hall |
4. My Dad was a Navy man my entire life...he was in Korea then came home to marry my Mom. When I was a small child, about the age of our daughter when we lived in Tucson the first time, he was stationed in Washington State. I was taking tap and ballet classes, and probably because we were little dancers at the studio I attended, my fellow baby ballerinas and myself were asked to be angels in the Sea Fair Ball in Seattle that year. I remember Mom making a costume because it was tulle spangled with sequins and I think I was amazed at how special and dress-up it was. I had a matching muff. My photo was taken in that costume, but I think that was for my recital. As angels we wore little sequined bathing-suit style outfits with attached wings. Later I also remember being asked to climb a ladder and stick my head through a board so it would look like the angels were all in the clouds, from the other side of the board, and have our photos made again. Only I have terrible claustrophobia, and it was quite an ordeal getting my head through that hole! But I finally managed, and the picture was taken. There is also a photo of we angels looking up at the Princess of the Sea Fair Ball as she danced with her escort, late the night of the ball (there was also a Sea Fair parade and I don't know if we were in it) but I don't remember being there late at night for those festivities. The photo proves however that I was.
Mom had had a new baby in Seattle, a little sister for me, and my dancing career ended when then a year later in Hawaii she also produced a son, my brother Michael. With two little ones to run after, there was no time or extra money for dance classes (I did take baton later, and was horrible! :-) ) However, there is the thread....do you remember that our daughter took baby ballet classes here in Tucson? Well, these continued with each place we lived after that, and developed into serious dance classes that produced summer classes on partial scholarship to Joffrey in New York. She was eventually asked to come to Hartford, CT to be an alternate choice for new dancers for the Ballet Company there. But, by then a lot of water had gone under the bridge, plus she wasn't being offered a job there yet and would have to move there and work till she could move up, and it was a long way from home....so she stayed in Virginia, which was where we were living at the time. But her dancing was incredible! She was SO talented, and we are very proud of those years for her. Another thread.
5. There have been so many more threads that have appeared and re-appeared. I'm sure you can say the same about your own life. I could keep writing....but I won't. This is already way longer than I intended it to be! Just a moment of reflection at a time when I needed a short break from packing and other concerns and am looking forward to this new chapter about to begin.... Have an awesome weekend, one and all!
