A big move takes time, which means even lest posting than usual. But here is a snapshot of a great meeting the other day.
When I was taking out the garbage I waved to Ralph, our 82 year old, vegetarian, perpetually shirtless neighbor who made it his job to line all of the street's trashcans (and recycling bins) up in a central area to make it easier on waste management when they came through in the morning. He takes a special pride in it; he says he is the only one in the city who does it, and the WM crew love him for it. He also says its one of the few ways he can feel useful at 82 years old.
And so I waved to him as he was meticulously wrestling each can into place. He smiled a huge smile and returned the wave, this time waving me toward him.
We greeted each other warmly and then he said, "I hear that you're a music major."
"Yes sir."
"Master's student?"
"Yep."
"What's your focus?"
"Conducting for my master's."
He nodded and complimented my choice, and then he added, "Listen, you're a music guy, so you'll appreciate this." He leaned on the trash can and folded his hands, "You know what they say about getting into Carnegie Hall, practice practice. Well let me tell you how I got to Carnegie Hall."
He was right, my interest piqued.
He then told this story about a record that he owned, Rudolph Serkin playing Beethoven's 4th Piano Concerto with Eugene Ormandy and the Philadelphia Orchestra. When he had been discharged from the military he had no mode of transportation home, so he hitchhiked his way across the country (this was in the early sixties). All he had with him was this vinyl recording, and so he would hold the vinyl in his left hand, holding it across his torso while his right thumb jerked out across the highway. Thusly he traveled home.
When he finally got home he got a summons from Ursula Serkin (Rudolph's daughter). Somehow she had found out about the hitchhiking trip with her father's recording, and she was interested in introducing this young classical music aficionado to the rest of the family. He talked to her on the phone and she asked if he would be interested in seeing her father live in Carnegie Hall.
"Of course," he replied. "How much are the tickets?"
"Don't worry about that," she said. "Just come on down to will call and we'll take care of you."
So the evening of the performance he went down to Carnegie Hall and made his way to the will call booth when he heard his name being shouted from down the corridor. Ursula Serkin hurried over to him and grabbed his elbow and then led him into the hall. She sat him with the rest of the Serkin family in the presidential box at the center of the first balcony. He said he was so amazed from start to finish that he can actually hardly remember the performance.
Afterward the Serkins invited him over for dinner at their home. He said he was so entirely nervous that he hardly spoke a word, but they were so very gracious anyway. He showed them the vinyl he carried across the country and he said that they were incredibly humbled by his fandom for Rudolph.
"And that's how I got into Carnegie Hall," he said with a slight smile. He waved a knobby finger toward me, "Come here inside. There's something I want to show you."
He led me into his studio apartment and pulled a vinyl off of the shelf. There before me was the hitchhiking recording, Rudolph's hands folded right there in front of my eyes. It was an old album and he held it gingerly. I thought he was holding it out for me to take, but when I took hold of one side he did not let go of the other, and so we both stood for a moment holding the record and taking in its history.
Then Ralph opened it, letting several different notes and newspaper clippings fall free. All of the clippings were about Serkin and his performances, and there was an obituary for Serkin at the bottom. I was not able to catch what was on the notes.
"How did you come by this album?" I asked.
"Oh, that's another story," he sighed. But he launched into it anyway.
When he was working in the military his job was to manage top secret files. There were twelve safes he was in charge of, and he had to memorize all of the lock combinations, unable to write any of them down. He said that all his military terms and memorization was driving him crazy and he went to a friend and complained about it.
His friend told him to shut up and listen. He turned the record player onto that recording, and in Ralph's own words,
"For the next three, four, five minutes, I was transported. The arpeggios, the trills, it was all amazing."
And then his friend interrupted the moment, lifted the needle, took out the record, put it in its sleeve, and then handed it to Ralph, "Listen to it whenever you need to. Now go on, I have work to do."
And so Ralph would listen to that record every single night before he went to bed. However, the morning after his friend gave him the record he went to work, but could not remember any of the codes to open the safes.
"The music had pushed them clean out!" he said, eyes wide.
And so he took a day off (he was a good worker so he said they allowed him to do it whenever he needed), but when he came back the next day he still could not remember the codes. He went to his friend in a panic and explained the whole situation to him. His friend pointed to the album in Ralph's hand and asked him, "What do you see?"
Ralph looked at it, "It says Beethoven Piano Concerto No. 4, Rudolph Serkin, Eugene Ormandy, etc, etc."
"No, Ralph. Look at it! What do you see?"
Ralph said he was perplexed. "I guess I see Rudolph's hands."
"Exactly," his friend said. "Look at those hands. Do you think Rudolph tells his hands how to play the music? No, he just tells them to play the music. It's in his hands. No go on, I have work to do."
So Ralph went on, confused by what his friend had just told him. He said he made his way through the day faking it until finally he had no choice but to get into one of the safes. He put his hand on the nob, and then like Serkin's hands, it just moved. The door opened. He went one by one down the row and opened all twelve safes that same way, and he did not remember a single number! It was all in his hands, just like his friend said, just like Serkin. And thusly Ralph said he was able to fill his head with music instead of numbers and military terms. And that is why he shipped all of his things home when he was finally discharged, except for this album. This album he had to keep close to him.
And so he put the clippings back into the sleeve with the record, and then moved to put it back on the shelf. He stopped and held up another album, "Do you know this one?"
"Of course!" I remarked. "That's Van Cliburn winning the Tchaikovsky piano competition back in the sixties."
"Yes," he said. "An amazing musician. This here is an original. You don't really find this laying around anymore. Who would have thought that such an uneducated young person such as me would have had this sophisticated of a taste in music back then? I had no idea when I was that age, I just like it. I had no idea the impact of Cliburn; I had no idea what it meant to sit in Carnegie Hall with the Serkins and watch Rudolph play. But you're a musician, so I thought you might appreciate that."
Then he told one more story about how a neighbor a few years back finally got him on stage at an open mic event. He said he was so very nervous, and he shook uncontrollably. However, the microphone he held gave a certain power to his old gravelly voice, and he was able to do things he never imagined.
"After all," he said, "Where would Mick Jagger be without a microphone?" He smiled. Then Ralph steadied his stance and took off his thick glasses. "You're a musician, you'll appreciate this."
And then Ralph launched into a riveting performance of slam poetry. He rapped about writing, just getting it done and having the courage to write when you don't want to. He rapped about Beethoven and Nirvana and Van Halen and Depeche Mode. About the Beastie Boys and Tchaikovsky. It was a slam dedicated to the power of determined artists, writers that had what it took. I was floored by this 82 year old man who could not only find clever ways to weave music into prose, but he could also throw out "dawg" and "yo" and "word" and make it sound right.
He finished, put his glasses back on, and shrunk back into the Ralph I had met before. His eyes got really wide, "Did you like that?"
"I loved it!"
He smiled and chuckled, "Well good. You're a musician, so we'll have to share with each other sometime." And then he got suddenly serious. "You're moving into a community here. I've lived here 15 years and we're a community, and you and your wife are part of it now. This community, we look out for each other. And there's musicians here, so you get to be part of that too. We look out for each other here."
"Now go on," he said, smiling and moving back outside to the trashcans, "I have work to do."
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