My Mom was especially adept at teaching us all to save things, lots of things of every size and shape. It must have been her upbringing in a large family with limited resources to go around and living through the depression when things were tight and hard to get.
We sure don’t have those problems today as any time we want something we just jot down to the grocery store and buy strawberries and watermelon in December and Christmas decorations in July. Stores are filled to the brim with all you could ever want.
I can be happy that I listened to my mother and have a husband who similarly collects and stores treasures. I mostly have stacks of fabric that was left over from Mom that I am gradually making into quilts while Stan has every tool imaginable that he has collected from his dad or bought himself over the years.
Along with these treasures are other things that seem somehow valuable and interesting although not particularly used. I have a strip of music propped up end to end on top of the piano. I really can’t play the piano much as I haven’t been able to stick with it long enough to get the left hand to play with the right hand. I could at one time play Star Dust as I practiced it until the music wore out, but that is about it.
Now I have taken up saxophone at age 63. It is only one note at a time so once you learn the fingering it seems simpler to manage. I picked up a couple of those old books that I couldn’t throw away and played some tunes from the 1920’s such as Into each Life some Rain Must Fall, Piccolo Pete and It is no Secret. They are slower tunes and I could at least tell the melody so I could copy what was in my head.
I found another book on top of the piano called Sing Along with Harry Wilson from 1948. I have never heard of Harry, but he did have an interesting collection of song. It had a price on it of sixty cent back when it was new. It has great old favorites like Home on the Range, The Band Played On, Carry me Back to Old Virginy, Swing Low Sweet Chariot and many more to fill the book up with 149 songs. This gives me a chance to learn different keys and with sharps and flats. Still learning. I play some songs so slow; you really wouldn’t know what I was playing unless you saw the music in front of me. Some songs just are interesting as I have never heard them nor do I have the inclination to learn them.
I make copies of some of the music so I don’t mess up these old song books that are long since yellow with age. It hasn’t helped my playing skill, but it keeps the old book in tack.
Recently, I went to the 50th Anniversary of my cousin Gene and his wife Sylvia Swanson. My almost 95 year old Aunt Ruth was there to enjoy the event. Gene’s four daughters did a bang up job singing four part harmony to old church hymns both in English and Swedish. I thought maybe I could play a few hymns on my saxophone as the melodies are fairly simple with many versus. These are songs I heard over and over when I grew up. Sure enough I found an old Hymnal on top of the piano that had some paper book marks for song I have played before. I couldn’t find that favorite song, How Great Thou Art, that the Swanson sisters sang but played a few others that were pretty easy to remember the tune and play the melody. Once I put away my saxophone for the day I did find song nine, O Mighty God, When I Behold the Wonder, which seems to be How Great Thou Art. It is a Swedish Folk Melody written in 1886 by Carl Boberg and translated by E. Gustav Johnson in 1925. I’ll play it tomorrow and see it is the same song.
Happy that my Mom taught me to save stuff so I could easily put my hands on this music this morning before work. I’m sure the stores with all their treasures would not have been able to fill my need to play that music just one more time this morning.