Recital w/ sax & clarinet students @ Community of Christ Church, Fremont

"Excuse me, Boss?"

"Hey, Boss?"

I turned around to face the person hailing me. I was in a hurry to enter the church as I was only barely arriving on time.

"Yeah. What's up?" I replied.

"You know you can't park here. I have this whole row of spots reserved," he said, waving his arm to demonstrate his area of parking lot dominion.

"I'm only going to be here an hour," I protested.

"I need this spot clear for customers," he insisted.

I promised I would be back out in one minute to move my car. Inside the church the recital prior to us was running extremely late. Ultimately, the pieces I accompanied began a full half-hour late. Clearly, some music teachers don't bother to time their student's performances. I can imagine these teachers sitting docile in the quiet hours of the night, all the while inwardly exulting, "We'll go as long as we need to - every one of my precious students will play their piece... and I don't care who we keep waiting!"

As I moved my car to another spot far, far away I reflected to myself, "Why is that Christmas tree vendor calling me 'Boss'?! If that's what he's going to call me, he should at least offer me a proper parking spot!"

The recital was fine. Some of the students I accompanied had never worked with a pianist before. They dropped beats from a measure here, dropped full bars there, forgot how to tune their instrument. All in a day's work for me. No matter what happened, I endeavored to make the student look and sound good.

Jason, their instructor, introduced me as "One of the finest pianists in the Bay Area." I smiled and chuckled to myself when I heard that.

Jesse