Not About Me
Posted on January 27, 2023 by Jim Ross
When I was a kid, I took accordion lessons in my bedroom. Every Thursday, my teacher faced me as I played last week’s assignment, heard his critique, tried to play it slightly better, got a new piece to practice over the coming week, and took a stab at the newly-assigned piece so he could issue warnings about where I’d likely go astray. Occasionally, he’d snatch my accordion away to show how a piece was supposed to be played.
One day, he stood as my lesson began and said: “You have no talent whatsoever. You never practice enough. You’ll never make anything of yourself. I can’t waste any more time trying to teach someone thoroughly lacking in commitment.” Speaking in a monotone, he didn’t sound angry. His face was pale, his blond hair disheveled, his keyboard hand shook, sweat ran from his forehead, and a tear streamed from his right eye. When he finished, he inadvertently knocked my music stand over, tore down the stairs, threw open the front door, ran toward his yellow-green Buick, and made his getaway.
My teacher had been a household fixture. Mom told me to call him Uncle Sam. Four years earlier, he had begun teaching Mom piano lessons in the living room. A few months after starting lessons, Mom’s car was t-boned and she had a late-second-trimester miscarriage. Sam began coming by to check up on Mom’s welfare. After Dad returned to work, Uncle Sam—Sam the Englishman—kept coming by.
Mom quickly became pregnant again. Dad and Mom—then five months pregnant—ran off on a ten-day vacation with Sam and his wife Elaine, whom we didn’t dare call “Aunt.” Sam stopped by for coffee and crumb cake at least once weekly in addition to the two visits for Mom’s piano and my accordion lessons. After Mom gave birth, Sam was coming by the house three to four times a week, even when Mom took a break from lessons. If he came by in the afternoon, they sipped tea with cream and shared sandwiches. Six months later, the foursome began going out to local hot spots for dinner and dancing. Eventually, Sam was stopping by at least five days a week. It seemed the friendship between the two families knew no bounds.
Then Sam’s mum and dad, Lily and John, arrived from England for an extended visit with the possibility of again making the United States their home. They had lived in the States for the duration of World War II, but had returned to England in 1947, and a few years later moved into Devizes Castle. Sam and their other two children had all been born in Devizes. Mom claimed they had an inheritable right to occupy the castle as “minor league royalty,” but it “came with no stipend and upkeep was horrendous.” They lived in a five-room flat next to the chapel.
Mom glommed onto Lily and John like butter to hot crumb cake. They often invited Mom over for lunch at Sam and Elaine’s. To add a second kitchen at Sam and Elaine’s, Lily and John dug deep into their pockets. Then something went awry. They hastily arranged for passage back to England. Mom became uncharacteristically quiet. Sam cut back his visits to once a week in addition to my lesson day. Then one day Sam the Englishman fired me. He ceased coming by. A cold chill fell on our household. I felt bad about disappointing Sam and thought my being a poor student had driven him away.
Forty years later, my eyes opened. After Mom’s stroke, my daughter found a metal box containing 22 letters from Lily and John. The first few were sent from Devizes castle. One contained a castle postcard with arrows designating Lily’s and John’s flat. I recognized the postcard. Several letters came from the town of Devizes after they moved out of the castle. The last several letters came from California, where their other two children lived.
The letters showed that Lily and John had adopted Mom as their refined American daughter. Letters to Mom signed “Mamsy and Daddy” told Mom, “You are in our thoughts more than words can convey.” Lily repeatedly told Mom that my Dad was a “stable, dependable man of great character,” whereas Sam was “gutless and lacked the courage to tell his Virago of a wife that he got to choose his friends, not her.” They claimed, “Elaine blocked Sam’s efforts to communicate with us, going so far as intercepting and destroying our letters.” However, “Sam never stood up for himself and allows Elaine to control him.” Bottom line: “Know we still love you,” but “Forget our son, Sam.”
In letter #4, Lily wrote, “Need I add we have never forgotten the way Sam declined to go on teaching your son only because he was ordered to do so by a very sad case of a woman whose word is law. Only a weakling like Sam would succumb to dictation from such a source.”
As time passed, John wrote more, often finishing letters Lily began. John frequently asked Mom to pass messages, “if your path happens to cross with Sam’s” or “if you happen to know somebody who knows him.” Anticipating their return to the States, John asked Sam to meet them at Penn Station. After arriving in California by train, John reported on their meeting with Sam: “You may rest assured, Sammy loves his friends and has never for one moment changed toward them.”
To my knowledge, I’m the only one other than Mom who read the 22 letters. Forty years after the fact, I learned Sam didn’t dump me because I was awful and had no talent. Firing me was one of Elaine’s explicit demands. Mom was the one getting dumped; I merely got hit with flying shrapnel. What if Sam didn’t believe a word he said when he fired me? What if his tear was real? Maybe he shed more of them. Regardless, it wasn’t about me. It never was.