My Story Part 2

Okay, back again for another installment: Days of My Life.



Where did we leave off? Oh yes... The day I found music.



Well as I said I started playing the sax in the 6th grade in Houston and that was my introduction to music. I stayed in Houston(Spring, TX actually, but close enough) until the the end of my 8th grade year. With 6 weeks left in school, my dad's company went down and we had to move once again. I was devastated about this particular move. I had good friends, a girlfriend(my first real crush, among other things), and I had the school band(by this time I was playing in the school honor band, football bleacher band, and jazz band). I begged my parents not to go, but obviously it was a must. so with 6 weeks to go in school I began going to Durant Middle School in Durant, OK population 10,000. Now for some of you, this may seem like a big town, but for a city boy from the Dallas area and Houston area, this was a huge culture shock. To top it all off, I had only 6 weeks to make friends before we entered into the ever so important high school years. My only hope was band and so i joined immediately. Now, coming from a big school, known for their music program I was immediately the talk of the band community and school really, as being the next great musician to come into the school. Also, my mother's family came from Durant and my grandmother was somewhat of a political figure for years in the town and my uncle was currently sheriff of the county. You would think that having instant buzz in the community and favor from the band directors would give me a leg up, but then you wouldn't know how smaller schools work. In smaller schools most of the kids grew up together and getting into a circle is hard enough, and now I am tagged as the kid trying to come in and steal the show. This made finding friends a little harder and made me a little more insecure. Luckily by this point, I was used to being the new guy and by the time summer rolled around and summer band marching training rolled around, I was able to find a few friends in the band that were older upper classmen and took to me pretty well. Those last 6 weeks and the summer after my eighth grade year were tough, especially considering the fact that I didn't want to be there in the first place, but this is also where I met another mentor in my life, my future high school band director, John Parnell. I will never forget walking into the band hall the first day of school in Durant and there stood my middle school band director(which is to be expected considering this was the middle school), but also the high school band director. He had come to the school just to meet me and talk with me a little. He was brash and scary looking and I was completely intimidated and yet i was immediately drawn to him. Now remember, I come from an area that the middle schools filter into 2 high schools in the area both with average graduating classes of over 1,000. I didn't even know the high school band directors name at my other school, I certainly never got a visit from him just so he could meet me and talk with me a little while. I had no clue at the time how much this man would influence my musical passion, and how much I would very much miss him after he died. So I survived the middle school years and looking back on those years I realize that music had become my "thing." I didn't realize it at the time because I was caught up in the typical middle school drama, but I realize now that starting then and carrying on even now, music and especially playing music was my solice, my hiding place. It was that one thing that was honest about me and I could take refuge there, playing my sax and no one could influence that. My music was the one place that I could set aside my insecurity about being excepted and just be me. By this point in my life, no one(except maybe my mom) knew the real person I was because I had been so good at being whoever I needed to be. It was hard, certainly at that age, to always put on a face for everyone, but that was not necessary when I played music. I guess you could say music was my best and closest friend.

And then came high school!

By the way, with a few teachers reading this, please forgive the grammatical and spelling errors. this was the one thing my english teachers used to complain about and it never got better.

to be continued..........