My mother played the piano.
Neither my siblings nor I ever played the piano or took lessons. I do not recall my sister or brothers sharing stories of pecking away on the ivories or attempting to learn piano sheet music. A piano sat in our house, but only my mother mastered it. She played often during my childhood, but never pushed me to learn its mysteries.
I played the drum in elementary and middle school band. Mostly because my musical preferences leaned toward the Beatles and I fantasized about being Ringo Starr. Don’t ask. Maybe I erroneously believed learning percussion to be easier than a guitar or keyboard. For some reason I recall my sister perhaps playing the flute. Either way, that creative musical flow halted by adolescence in all of us.
My father played tennis.
Tennis trophy cups proudly stood upon shelves, collecting dust. As a kid, their majesty and splendor fascinated me. I fantasized them as some type of ornate chalice, a holy grail of sorts. I secretly played with them. I’m not sure anybody really cared, though. They belonged to my dad and he was never around. I’m sure they were forged from some priceless pewter alloy, manufactured in Thailand or Cambodia, later sold in a neighborhood little league trophy store.
When I recall the times I held a tennis racket on the hardcourt as my father instructed me on the subtle nuances of the game, the grand total adds up to zero. Now that I think about, I never even saw him play tennis. But I did stuff marbles, Hot Wheels, and Planet of the Apes action figures inside his sports mementos. In that regard, we experienced a super strong father-son connection. That’s OK. I’m sure nobody taught Dr. Zaius how to serve an ace either.
I love music, I just don’t play it.
An acoustic guitar sits on a stand in my basement, mocking me for my inability to harmoniously pluck, strum, or pick its strings. I once took lessons. I can now indiscriminately butcher basic guitar chords. It looks so easy when I watch others perform. I’m sure they practiced countless hours to get where they are today. My hours of toil felt more like wearing shoes on the wrong feet than musical mastery.
A keyboard lies unceremoniously shoved back inside its original container in a storage room. It may have originally been mine, but I never really tickled its keys. Michael Row the Boat Ashore and Puff the Magic Dragon played on one hand was as far as I got. My daughter took piano lessons for a couple of years and performed in two recitals, but it was never really her thing either. Likewise my son took guitar lessons, but that spark never turned into a flame.
I never played tennis.
I understand that my father told people I would become a formidable tennis star back in my youth. I used to throw tennis balls against a brick wall on the back of our house, but I never employed a racket or navigated shots over a net. I don’t suppose that personified me as tennis prodigy material. Bored kid with an absent dad, maybe. It’s a wonder I never got into more trouble.
My mother did sign me up for sports. I played youth football one year with kids my age. The bracket was called ankle biters. After the ankle biter year, we were divided up by weight. I played with boys 3 years older than me. That resulted in a broken arm before the season ever began and ended my football career until high school. Pop Warner football was so gladiatorial back in the ’70’s. Fortunately basketball teams were not selected based on physical size. I played with friends my age. I managed to break 2 bones over the years, but I still enjoyed it more.
My nephew is musically talented.
The onus of carrying on the instrument playing gene may squarely rest with him. As I recall, he can sing, pluck a guitar, and play the piano. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if he played other musical instruments as well. Heck, he’s even toured around the world playing in a band. He definitely carried my mother’s melodic torch farther than any of us.
My wife played the french horn in high school. It sounds like any other brass instrument, but adds a snooty flair at the end of each note. Actually I have no idea what a french horn sounds like. I don’t think they garner much attention from modern day music. However, if the right artist adopts its sound, the french horn could become the next hot thing on the country and western scene or cast a new mold in the hip hop world. Impossible n’est pas français!
I taught my wife how to play basketball.
I never fully prepared her for a successful run in the WNBA, but she picked up the basics. She truly has a smothering defense. In the mid ’90’s she’d run up to me on the court, wrap her arms around me, and yell “hugging”. This is not sanctioned in any United States basketball camp and I certainly never taught her this move. However, I never dissuaded the technique either. Games should be fun and basketball is a contact sport anyhow.
Horse is more our game. Sure, it does not incorporate her defensive abilities, but not everybody gets to be Dennis Rodman. Sometimes sports go hugless. Our last horse competition occurred during the 2020 lockdown. My wife, daughter, and I found an open court at a local elementary school. In keeping with pandemic pandering, a woman drove up behind my parked truck and wrote down my tag. How dare we play basketball outside with members of the same household. We might have inadvertently infected dozens of nearby prairie dogs.
Mysteriously, neither parent pushed their passion.
While I was a kid, my mother played the piano everyday, even if for only a moment. None of her children shared that mindset or musical panache. Maybe piano was her secret talent and she didn’t want to share that with us. I doubt it. My oldest brother played tennis, but he was it. Perhaps my father found it so exhausting trying to mentor him that he gave up hope on us younger kids. A more likely scenario than the first, but I still say no.
Maybe I should have hammered out notes on the ivories with a tennis racket or used the piano as a practice wall for my Penn’s and Wilson’s. Perhaps either parent would have taught me to use that particular instrument correctly. Instead the only keyboard I use is on a laptop and the only tennis ball in my house belongs to the dog. In that, no mysteries lie.
