A musical memory

    Let me back-up a little in order to share a reflection. When I was 12 years old my Dad bought an old wood-framed piano and enrolled me in the Bulawayo Music Academy in order to learn how to play. My cousin, Joan, had been learning since she was very young and was already an accomplished pianist who often played in the concerts in the city hall. She was a year older than I and we were good friends. I  took lessons for five years. It soon became very clear to Mrs. Munn, the owner of the academy, that I was particularly proficient in Music Theory and she started to use me to  help teach the little kids. One day there was a parade in town and as it passed the Academy we took the little kids out onto the balcony, which had a wooden railing around it,  to watch the parade pass by. When I gathered the kids together to go back to their lessons I looked back so see a little boy standing at the railings with tears streaming down his little face. I went to him to see what was the matter, "My knee is stuck in he hole and I can't get it out," he whispered. So I said, "I can fix that, just slowly straighten your leg and it will come out while I press on the rail." Of course it came out and he was smiling again. It was about the time I was getting ready to come over to go to Abilene Christian College and Mrs. Munn called me into
her office and told me she wanted me to make music my career, and to later work for the academy. I did not promise anything since I had not made up my mind about what I would do when I returned from America. Then I more or less forgot about the offer. When I got to college I did not think it fair to ask them to give me free music lessons since my tuition was free --  ACC was offering free tuition to any foreign students at that time  -- and I stopped learning piano. All this involved information is given so as to relate something which happened a couple of months before I married. My teacher had been Hugh Fenn who, a typical British teacher who was very sparing with compliments, but didn't mind dealing out criticisms. It frustrated him no end that I would memorise the pieces quickly and was often watching my hands instead of the music in front of me. He would constantly berate me with, "Keep your eyes on the music!"  I remembered him as a thin man who would sit in his armchair beside the piano with his legs draped over the  arm of the chair, as if he was bored to tears.  I remember his saying, once, "You know how you play the piano? Like a pair of old well-worn leather shoes." I felt it was a criticism, and that my music ability was worth nothing. All this to tell you that one day, when  I was still working at the Tax Office, I entered the elevator to go up to my office floor when a stoutish man got in too. I glanced at him and said "good morning" and turned away. Suddenly he said, "When are you coming back to the academy?" I looked at him in bewilderment. He said, "You don't remember me do you?" I looked closely and said, "Mr. Fenn! How are you?" He asked again when I was coming back and I told him I was soon to be married and didn't think I'd be going back. Maybe, just maybe, I wasn't as unmusical as I thought he thought I was