To The Tardis Time Lord We're Going To '77

I have been meaning to write about snap shots in my life for a long time. Thinking about time and years as they passed makes me feel like I missed many moments of importance and would give anything to get those moments back. Hence my tardis.

I don't promise to write about these in order or even to write about them at all. The Doctor doesn't travel in only one direction in time and neither will I.

Here are the important years: 1977, 1978, 1981, 1983, 1986, 1987, 1988, 1991, 1993, 1995, 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2006, 2007
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1977

I was not allowed to play baseball as a child. No Little League allowed. My nervous-nellie-mother was a true worrier. Every now and then I feel her hand grab my ankle from the beyond; "Mathman, You'll hurt yourself."

1977 life in Chicago was dotted with minor sports success, the Sox and Cubs were both in 1st place during August and the Bears made the playoffs for the 1st time in years. My nephew was born the night an EL train fell of the tracks across the street from where I would work for 5 years in the '90s.

So it was in that summer when I was finally allowed to play the Bassoon. It was odd , considering that we were such a musical family, that my father made me wait until I was almost in 8th grade to play. I recall playing all those beginning wind songs and C and F scales. I played a loud, too.

All my siblings had music lessons to learn their instruments. I didn't get lessons until the year after I started. The sibs all received new instruments (flute, oboe, french horn, clarinet and drums) as holiday gifts. I never got my own new bassoon. Never.

I wanted to play bassoon since I was about 5 years old and truly love playing. The bassoon represents my general contrarian attitude. In high school there were never more than 2 or 3 bassoonist in band and orchestra and we were in demand almost always needed and not often heard. By the time I was a senior my partner and I both earned chairs in the Chicago Youth Symphony Orchestra. We could play.

The bassoon has been my ticket to performing great music: bassoon concertos by Mozart and von Weber, Tschaikowsky's 4th Symphony, Marche Slave and Capriccio Italien, Mahler's 1st Symphony, Verdi's Requiem. Handel's Messiah. Mendelsohn's Violin Concerto, many Sousa Marches, Beethoven's 5th Symphony and Egmont Overture, Copland's Appalachian Spring and many, many more...

My bassoon is thread that connects my timeline together, from 8th grade to my first love to my best performance (The Man of LaMancha) to my father's death to Indiana University to Radio Shack to our wedding to our first separation to teaching to Mathman H.S.