The following was written by my late wife Elaine. She wrote a long book, a diary really, from which this is one passage:
Pictorial Music, Needlepoint, and Our Children’s Instruments
In 1977 I finished a needlepoint tapestry that I designed and stitched; I’m very proud of that! Dave made an attractive frame for it with pine scraps from wood he got from an old log house; some of the the same wood is used for the wainscoting in our living room.
The tapestry illustrates the musical instruments our five musical children played: Carolyn, clarinet and piano; Jonathan, trumpet and piano; Ellen, clarinet and piano; Paul, cello and piano; and Erik, trombone and piano.
Paul liked Bach’s Minuet in G and learned it from me, note after note by rote. We worked on it a few notes at a time until he could play as much of it as he was interested in, and when I look at the needlepoint’s bottom border showing six measures of Minuet in G, I think of Paul.
The music along the top border is also by JS Bach: Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring.
Paul gave me a metronome for Christmas, 2000. It’s just like metronomes I used in my teachers’ studios when I was a girl. You can hear it ticking, but you can also see it waving back and forth, out of the corner of your eye. So, it’s easier to follow than electronic metronomes with sound but nothing visual. Thanks again, Paul and family!
It’s All Relative
One day when I was helping test students’ eyes during the annual health tests in Union Elementary School (the Homebound Teacher helped with this every year), a little girl looked up at me and said, “You are really old.”
I hadn’t thought of 55 as being all that old, until that moment. I replied to her, “Yes, I really am old; I’m 100 years old! Did you know that?”
The best part of this story is that not a week later, during one of my visits with Sadie M. – my music buddy – and without her knowing this little story of a young child’s curiosity, she said to me, “Elaine, I envy you your youth.” Thanks, Sadie! I needed that! Ha.
To be continued…
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About the Author: RD Blakeslee (1931 – 2024) built his net worth by only investing in that which can be enjoyed during acquisition and throughout life, as opposed to papers in a drawer, like stocks and bonds. You can read more about him here.
Photos: Courtesy of the Blakeslee Family
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