Each spring the piano pedagogy department gave a recital in the university's nicest music auditorium. Each student would walk across the stage, play their best piece on the music department's best concert grand, bow, and walk off.
There was a whole system: All of the kids sat in one section by the stage door. While one student was playing one would be waiting backstage for their turn to walk out and one would be waiting in their seat for their turn to walk back stage.
One year early in my career my grandmother came down for the spring recital. Her first name was Mildred. After the program she and my mother and father were standing around her car talking before she headed back home. While talking my father called her “Millie.” Even at that young age, and despite my mother’s and grandmother’s grace at not acknowledging the insult, I could tell that it wasn't right for him to call her by that name.
Several years later, at home after the recital, I picked up my father’s printed program. He had written a one word review of each of the performers. Several of the 16 and 17 year old girls were “sexy.” I was “average.”
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