Just as some mothers are determined that one of their sons will grow up to be a priest, my mother was determined that one of her sons would learn to play the piano. She was able to harass my father into the expense despite his preferred spending plan of acting like it was the Depression, and his complete failure to understand why anyone would need anything that he did not.
So one summer my two older brothers took piano lessons from this nice lady who had a cute house with a steep gable over the front door. They, wisely, were horrible at it; trying to learn their pieces at the last minute just before the final recital, one of my brothers breaking out in tears, my father looking on proudly, my mother, not too disappointed, realized this wasn't going to work.
A couple years later I started piano lessons with Mrs. Schafer who had a piano studio in her finished basement. Stupidly, I showed some aptitude for it; learning how to read music and the key signatures and the scales fairly quickly. After a year her husband got a job out of town and I started taking lessons at the university two blocks away.
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