Saturday, March 31, 2012

2-1/2 years in Mountain Home, AR

During my year at Cotter, my Dad had gotten a job at the next nearby "big" town, so after school was out, we moved to that town: Mtn. Home, Arkansas. It was only a few miles from Cotter. And the school, where I was ready to start my 8th grade, was much larger than Cotter. And so was the band! The one thing I really had developed a love and interest for was music, and I didn't want to stop now. So, is it any wonder that the only teacher I remember was Jerald Reed, the band teacher.

The 7th and 8th grades were in an entirely separate building from the other schools. Since I started there as an 8th grader, that made me an upper classman. We would load on a bus and go over to the high school for our band classes.

My folks had bought some property outside of town, and we started building a house there. For the second time I could remember, we built the garage first and lived in it, with the intention of building the house onto it while we lived in the garage part. Which was really a small house, had a kitchen, bathroom and separate area for the "master bedroom." Hey, we were a builder's kids, we didn't know anything different. The difference this time was, we actually did build the house onto it, and moved in. My mom drew the blueprints and my dad built it, with the help of his crew: me and my brother. The sister was still too small to be of any use on a construction site. I learned a lot about building that summer. And it never hurt me a bit, except for a few smashed thumbs, sore muscles, and blisters on my hands. And we had acres of woods around the house where we could run wild and play after the work was done.

I stayed with the band. And learned that although playing clarinet was easy for me, and I did fairly well at it....marching was not. In fact, I was horrible at it. But I still had to march in the parades and at football halftimes. I really hated it because I just never did catch on, and barely made it through without some America's Funniest Videos-worthy fiasco. And the uniform didn't even fit. It felt huge on me. I found one picture of me in it, and I think I must have pinned it in the back with clothespins to make it even look like it fit me. And the trousers were way too short. Appropriately, I'm standing in front of our unfinished house, and you can tell by the scowl on my face how much I *hated* that uniform!


When we had moved into the house part of the house, my parents bought me a piano. Oh joy, joy. A clarinet AND a piano! I would spend literally hours playing both of them, and it was during this time that I realized I could listen to a song on our big console stereo over and over until I could play along with what was on the record. They told me that was called "playing by ear." It was the way my Daddy played the guitar, so I guess that's where I got the idea. We sure had some good times playing music, me on the piano and him on the guitar.

Anyway, as much as we loved living in Mtn. Home, I knew it would probably come to an end when the job ended. Which it did. Daddy went to Kansas City to work at a job and left us in AR. That only lasted a few months. My parents didn't like that whole idea of being separated as a family, so he went ahead and located us an apartment to rent and we moved in February of my sophomore year. Not even a half a year to finish out. But I had done this often enough to know that as much as I loved Mtn. Home, I would learn to love my new home if I gave it a chance.


And I did. Except for one thing. During some hard times, my parents gave me a choice: keep my clarinet and get rid of my piano. Or sell my clarinet to pay for the piano. I chose the latter. So no band for me at the new school, but at least I got to take my piano with me.

Years later, on a trip back through Mtn. Home, we went to see "our" house and took a photo of how it looked after a few years. Still beautiful.