Game changers
There are people who drift in and out of our life all the time, but sometimes, even though our time with them is relatively brief, they are game changers who have a profound effect on us. I'd like to tell you about a few of my game-changers.
The first two were a pair-a minister and his wife--who started a Glee Club at our little elementary school in the heart of the southwestern Virginia mountains. We didn't do Broadway-level theatrical productions like the show on tv, but we did an annual show each year that certainly merited an awful lot of preparation and hard work and nerves for a bunch of 11-13 year olds. So why did singing in a little elementary school choir change my life? Well, because they taught me to read music as a singer and to sing harmony with anyone on anything. And they convinced me that I could actually sing and should. I also learned how much I liked being part of something but invisible, out of the spotlight glare. Creating harmonious perfection is a high like no other! My love of harmonizing has provided my main hobby over the years. Music is fun and it's stress-reducing-that's what I learned from Mr. and Mrs. Argoe.
The next path-shaper was also a teacher--a bear of a man named Jack Higgs. Jack had been a linebacker at the Naval Academy and had an IQ probably close to his body weight. One of the most well-read, interesting, thoughtful, and funny teachers anyone ever had, he was able to not only teach you facts and theories and ideas, but also to present a coherent vision of the world, specifically of American literature in a larger historical context. I learned a great deal about my country from him, but more than that, I learned what kind of teacher I wanted to be: To challenge students, to try to inspire them, to make them curious, to take them seriously, to help them see their own potential.
Finally, one of the most inspiring of all was not a traditional teacher; in fact, she was the cook in the lunchroom in our school. Her name was Janette Carter and she was the daughter of A.P. and Sara Carter of the famous first family of country music--The Carter Family. I was fortunate to get to spend a good deal of time in her house when I was a little kid because her daughter (also named Rita)and I were best friends in elementary school. Janette had a hard life-twice unhappily married--and she was herself the child of a sad divorce who never completely recovered from that heartbreak, it seemed to me. I remember thinking even as a small child that some great hurt was written on her face that never completely disappeared, despite having one of the most beautiful smiles and melodious laughs I ever heard! But despite any problems and heartbreak she suffered, Janette never gave up on her family legacy--she loved the music of the mountains. Even more, she deeply loved and respected her parents' love of it and her father's dogged persistence in bringing that music to a wider world.
So in the 1970s, with no money, she started a weekly music show in the little store building that her dad had used so many years before. The crowds came and grew and came and grew. She did it, she said, to honor her father's legacy and her promise to him, when he had asked her in his last days, to try to keep the music alive. Inspired by her and the thousands of musicians she and later Rita and Dale brought to that stage over these last 40+ years, I learned to play the autoharp like she did, and the guitar, a little bit anyway, and sing the old songs. I have done what little I can do to pass on the love of music to others. I now know that teachers aren't in classrooms much of the time, that my life is a school for others who might be watching, unnoticed by me.
The first two were a pair-a minister and his wife--who started a Glee Club at our little elementary school in the heart of the southwestern Virginia mountains. We didn't do Broadway-level theatrical productions like the show on tv, but we did an annual show each year that certainly merited an awful lot of preparation and hard work and nerves for a bunch of 11-13 year olds. So why did singing in a little elementary school choir change my life? Well, because they taught me to read music as a singer and to sing harmony with anyone on anything. And they convinced me that I could actually sing and should. I also learned how much I liked being part of something but invisible, out of the spotlight glare. Creating harmonious perfection is a high like no other! My love of harmonizing has provided my main hobby over the years. Music is fun and it's stress-reducing-that's what I learned from Mr. and Mrs. Argoe.
The next path-shaper was also a teacher--a bear of a man named Jack Higgs. Jack had been a linebacker at the Naval Academy and had an IQ probably close to his body weight. One of the most well-read, interesting, thoughtful, and funny teachers anyone ever had, he was able to not only teach you facts and theories and ideas, but also to present a coherent vision of the world, specifically of American literature in a larger historical context. I learned a great deal about my country from him, but more than that, I learned what kind of teacher I wanted to be: To challenge students, to try to inspire them, to make them curious, to take them seriously, to help them see their own potential.
Finally, one of the most inspiring of all was not a traditional teacher; in fact, she was the cook in the lunchroom in our school. Her name was Janette Carter and she was the daughter of A.P. and Sara Carter of the famous first family of country music--The Carter Family. I was fortunate to get to spend a good deal of time in her house when I was a little kid because her daughter (also named Rita)and I were best friends in elementary school. Janette had a hard life-twice unhappily married--and she was herself the child of a sad divorce who never completely recovered from that heartbreak, it seemed to me. I remember thinking even as a small child that some great hurt was written on her face that never completely disappeared, despite having one of the most beautiful smiles and melodious laughs I ever heard! But despite any problems and heartbreak she suffered, Janette never gave up on her family legacy--she loved the music of the mountains. Even more, she deeply loved and respected her parents' love of it and her father's dogged persistence in bringing that music to a wider world.
So in the 1970s, with no money, she started a weekly music show in the little store building that her dad had used so many years before. The crowds came and grew and came and grew. She did it, she said, to honor her father's legacy and her promise to him, when he had asked her in his last days, to try to keep the music alive. Inspired by her and the thousands of musicians she and later Rita and Dale brought to that stage over these last 40+ years, I learned to play the autoharp like she did, and the guitar, a little bit anyway, and sing the old songs. I have done what little I can do to pass on the love of music to others. I now know that teachers aren't in classrooms much of the time, that my life is a school for others who might be watching, unnoticed by me.
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