“Let’s
visit the Nesbitt Farm,” Robert’s father, Joe, suggested on a bright winter
morning. Robert and his brother, Charles, got bundled up for the drive north
into Benton County, Indiana. Joe had been talking about buying two purebred
Polled Herefords, so that each boy would have one to show at the county fair
and so that each could start his own line of pedigreed Herefords to help pay
for college tuition years later.
Mr. Nesbitt
stood tall beside the door to his kitchen. He wore a pleasant smile. Stretching
as far as the eye could see, Mr. Nesbitt’s flat land resembled a tan tablecloth
set with blue willow ware plates, which were islands of snow with sapphire
shadows. A herd of white-faced, cinnamon-colored calves that had been weaned
stood facing the same direction in a fenced enclosure just beyond a clean,
well-appointed barn. A child’s coloring book featuring life on the farm would
have done well to depict Mr. Nesbitt as the ideal farmer.
“We might
be in the market for a couple of heifers,” Joe began, as he shook hands with
Mr. Nesbitt.
“Well,
you’ve come to the right place,” Mr. Nesbitt replied agreeably. “I have plenty
of heifers for you to choose from.”
Mr. Nesbitt
guided Joe, Charles, and Robert toward the pasture.
“Are the
heifers for your boys here?” Mr. Nesbitt asked.
“Yes, sir,”
Joe answered. “They’re in 4-H Club.”
“I would
have guessed that,” Mr. Nesbitt said, chuckling. “Well, these are young heifers
that would make good 4-H entries.” Wearing a yellow glove, Mr. Nesbitt waved
his large hand in a sweeping gesture to indicate the calves, all of which were
peering at the newcomers and blinking their long-lashed eyes.
In his
mind, Robert had already selected one, and he hoped his choice would be one of
his father’s top picks. The heifer had a happy expression, almost as if she
shared Mr. Nesbitt’s jovial smile.
“Could we
buy her?” Robert asked his father while pointing toward the merry calf.
Mr. Nesbitt
said, “You have a good eye, son. She’s a blue-ribbon heifer if I ever saw one.”
“With your
recommendation, we can’t go wrong,” Joe said. Turning to Robert, Joe asked, “Do
you have a name for her?”
“I think
she looks like Vicky!” Robert replied enthusiastically.
“Vicky?”
Mr. Nesbitt chuckled. “Well now, that’s a good name for a cow!”
“We’ll be
back to get her on a warm day. Do you need to mark her?” Joe wondered.
“No,” Mr.
Nesbitt responded. “I’ll remember which one she is. She has buttons where horns
want to form. That sometimes happens with polled Herefords. I’ll take care of
the buttons so she looks true to breed. Which calf does your other boy want?”
Charles
could not decide. Finally, he pointed at one.
“Now,
that’s a good heifer,” Mr. Nesbitt said.
Robert felt
uncertain about the choice, but he kept his opinion to himself. Skittishly
hurrying to hide behind other calves and nervously changing direction, the
heifer had a wary look in its eye.
“Do you
have a name for her?” Joe asked Charles.
“No. I’ll
think of one later,” Charles said.
Mr. Nesbitt
invited Joe, Charles, and Robert into his kitchen, so that Joe could sign the
paperwork.
On a table
was a clarinet in a tan case. Robert stared at it as if mesmerized. For some
time, he had wanted to learn to play the clarinet. When the members of the Pine
Village High School Band performed in their blue uniforms with white braids,
white stripes, and silver buttons, the clarinetists sat toward the front to the
director’s left. Robert enjoyed watching them work the silver keys of their
instruments. His cousin Connie was the first chair, and he wished he could grow
up to take her place one day.
“Say,” Mr.
Nesbitt said, reading Robert’s mind, “you wouldn’t know of anybody in the
market for a clarinet, would you? My daughter wants to sell hers.”
Robert
thought it was too much of a good thing to be gaining a lovely heifer, already
a pet in his mind, and a clarinet—all in the same day! Robert said nothing, but
Joe understood how powerfully he wanted a clarinet. One look at Robert’s not-daring-to-hope
face told Joe all he needed to know.
“I guess we
could consider the clarinet, too,” said Robert’s father. “How much do you want
for it?”
“Fifty
dollars,” replied Mr. Nesbitt.
All the way
home, Robert carried the precious clarinet in his lap. His heart was racing. He
could hardly believe his good fortune. He needed no further proof that he had
the greatest dad in the world!
Back at
home, Robert figured out how to slide the sections of the clarinet together. As
he had no way of knowing how to arrange a reed on the mouthpiece, he could not
play a note, but he considered the clarinet to be a glorious instrument.
Learning to
play the clarinet, though, was a struggle. Robert’s parents enrolled him in
lessons at Mahara’s Music Center in Lafayette’s Market Square. For the first
several weeks, Robert’s teacher, a young man named Mr. Baker, kept trying to
help him make a note on the instrument. Robert’s breath escaped around the
mouthpiece. The only sound was puff-puff-puff. Robert had that tingling in the
cheeks that one gets from blowing up too many balloons. Finally, on a glorious
afternoon, the clarinet emitted an enormous squawk! What a thrill! Mr. Baker
breathed a sigh of relief, and Robert smiled from ear to ear.
From that
day forward, Robert’s abilities rapidly progressed. That summer, Mr. Lee Davis,
nicknamed “Weird Beard” because of his goatee that was similar to that of
Skitch Henderson or Mitch Miller, began adding younger musicians to the high
school band he directed so as to make it as large as possible for the
competition at the Indiana State Fair. He accepted Robert into the ranks.
Robert was going to get to wear the blue uniform with the silver buttons and
white braids long before he was old enough to attend high school!
All summer,
the augmented band rehearsed on a parade ground that had been marked off with
lime stripes on the west edge of the school playground. The competition
consisted of parade shows, not football field shows. The parade strip had been
measured to conform precisely to the judging area the band would encounter at
the grandstand in Indianapolis during the fair. From the moment when the front
rank of the band crossed the starting line until the back rank stepped over the
finish line, a stop watch counted the seconds. Going overtime would cost
precious points. Mr. Davis had built an observation platform accessible by a
ladder. From the platform, he looked down on the band to see if the lines were
straight and to make sure that everyone was in step. Mr. Davis combined the
best attributes of a disciplinarian, a musician, and a friend. He knew exactly
when to crack the proverbial whip and when to sit back and laugh
good-naturedly. Eager to please Mr. Davis, the band, over the weeks of
practice, pounded the grass into powder. The white stripes that were formed
with lime disappeared into the dust and more had to be laid down.
At one
point in the music, the band members had to stand in place and slowly revolve
until they were crouching; then they had to spring back up and begin marching
again. The 360-degree spin was practiced over and over, until everyone’s
hamstrings were sore.
The day for
the bus trip to Indianapolis arrived. In the pre-dawn hours, band members arrived
in the school parking lot. Clusters of students talked excitedly while parents
milled about their cars.
Robert felt
that the trip to Indianapolis was a dream come true—except when he gagged on
the girls’ hairspray as they tried to force their big hair under their blue
band caps with the white bills. Robert disembarked as quickly as he could and
stood breathing the fresh air until his lungs cleared. He made sure that the
decorative braided cords around the shoulder of his uniform were in the right
place.
The long
wait began. The line of bands wove like an anaconda among the buses parked all
the way to the horizon. In those years, over a hundred bands of smaller schools
competed on the day that the Pine Village band took part. Ranks and files of
uniforms of every hue filled the vision.
The bands
crept forward and waited, crept forward and waited. Ultimately, there were no
more bands in front of the Pine Village High School Band. The track passed before a towering grandstand filled with spectators. Robert took a deep
breath. Mr. Davis smiled encouragement to his musicians. Suddenly, the parade
show started. Robert performed the notes and steps like a machine with no need
to think about what he was doing. The instant the show was finished, Mr. Davis
came running. “We didn’t go over!” he shouted, tapping his stop watch.
Later that
day, the band learned that Pine Village was ranked in the top third, coming in
ahead of far larger bands at far larger schools.
