Keys to Glory

West 116th Street in Cleveland, Ohio, was a fun place to grow up. We’re talking 1950s and 60s. Many of the old houses already made the transition to aluminum siding. The front yards were separated by hedges, making practicing for the hurdles in the Olympics a regular event. Our house sat in the middle of the block, a duplex, with my cousins living next door. One end of the street was the public school with a playground including a dirt ball field with a chain link backstop. The other end of the block was the Catholic school—St. Rose of Lima—my school. I have an older sister, Lenore, named after my mom’s mother. I came next, and since my grandfathers were named Edward and Edmund, well? Who eventually followed were Phil, Mark, Margaret, Joe, Rita and Allen. Eight was enough. My dad was once asked if he was a family man. “Yes, five boys and three girls,” he said. “Oh, the good Lord smiled on you,” answered the man. “Smiled? He laughed out loud!” said my dad. My mom, Anne, would say that being a devout Catholic, they used the rhythm method for birth control and that’s why all eight of their children were musicians. Large families were more common back then. Heck, just on our street were the Ginnard’s, eleven kids, Ropelewski’s with eight, Barret’s with seven, and Mumaw’s with six. You could knock on a couple doors and get a baseball game going. You don’t see much, if any, of that today. Nowadays kids have to have a uniform, coach and a willing driver to play sports. We could be playing anywhere in the neighborhood, even down by the railroad tracks, but we always knew when to come home for dinner. At six o’clock every night, the bells in the tower at St. Rose would go off. My dad, Glenn (like it said on his uniform), worked in the elevator business as a mechanic. Oh, it had its ups and downs, but it paid the bills (his joke, not mine). He loved to wrestle with us on the floor, pack us up in the station wagon for a ride in the country and get ice cream, or just watch TV with us on the old Muntz black-and-white. I had my own remote control—my brother Joe. With only three channels to choose from it was a pretty easy job. One night the whole family gathered around to see The Beatles on The Ed Sullivan Show. None of us could know how historic that event would be, especially my dad. “See? All you have to do is have long hair and sing ‘yeah, yeah, yeah’ and make a million bucks!” was his comment. I was pretty shy as a young kid. I didn’t want to go to church because of all the people there. One Saturday afternoon my dad took me over to church, just to walk around it when no one was there. Good thing I got used to it, because by second grade, our whole school through eighth grade had assigned seats every Sunday morning at the 8:30 a.m. Mass with our class. Boys sat on one side of the aisle and girls on the other. It was also in second grade I started piano lessons. My mom played piano and I loved to sit and listen to her. My dad always wanted to learn an instrument, but there wasn’t the money for either an instrument or lessons when he was growing up. His desire was to see that every one of his kids had an opportunity to learn a musical instrument. Before leaving school one day, we were all pinned with a note to take home. Private piano lessons were available at the convent during the school day for $1.50 one half hour each week. It was a no-brainer and my parents signed me up. Sister Agnes Marie was by far the oldest nun in the convent. She was definitely much older than my Grandmas. She was the only nun who didn’t teach a particular grade full time, but instead, taught singing to all the classes. I’d also see her playing the big organ up in the balcony of the church when the boy’s choir would sing. She started me off with the basics; time signature, beats, and learning note reading, first the right hand, then the left. The only time it wasn’t fun was when she knew I didn’t practice. She would chew me out; up and down and never fail to get out the ruler for my knuckles. During one of these episodes, she caught me glancing down at my new Timex watch I got for my First Communion to see when the session would end. The watch was immediately confiscated and her ranting continued. My parents never really made me practice. After that day they didn’t have to!