dragon joe

To a half million vets & Harley riders who participated in yesterday’s Rolling Thunder event, Joe Lozano is “Dragon Joe”.  Joe is a Viet Nam veteran, and travels these days from Georgia each May to participate in Rolling Thunder.  His wife, Mee owns & rides her own Harley Davidson motorcycle as well, and is a veteran of the US Army and of Rolling Thunder.

To us, Joe & Mee are also our former neighbors from our first apartment, and we try to see them each year after the Rolling Thunder events have wound down.  We met them and several of their military brothers at an old favorite restaurant – Magic Wok in Springfield, Va.  We even saw our original waiter from the 1990s there.  He remembered all of us.  It was a great reunion!

There are a half million brothers & sisters of Dragon & Mee in town, and we salute them all with gratitude.  Thank you for your service & sacrifice.

David, Mee, Joe & Kathy

peter’s prodigious piano premier

It’s a moment I have thought about ever since it became clear that Peter has perfect pitch. I knew I would someday introduce him to the piano keyboard & see how quickly he grasps the concept of a musical scale, and the relationship of physical up & down on the keyboard and higher & lower pitches.

I set up a video camera next to the piano, gave Peter a quick (30 seconds or so) explanation of a C Major scale and how the keyboard works, and I then turned on the camera.  What you see here is unrehearsed, and quite literally Peter’s 1st time playing the piano.

[my apologies for the audio quality - Murphy's Law kicked in & the video's audio track sounds terrible - go figure]

red robin read

There were four adults in the room – all with mouths hanging wide open in disbelief of what they heard.

Peter came into the kitchen holding a balloon.  The balloon was from the burger restaurant Red Robin.  We were at friend’s house, so he had never seen this balloon before, nor has Peter ever been to a Red Robin.  He pointed to each letter in the Red Robin logo, and said…

“Rrr Eee D….  Rrr..Oo..B..Ii..Nnnnn”.

Peter read to us!  Peter read to us!

emma makes her performance debut

Bravo, Emma!  Grandma Charlotte is smiling down on you.  And you KNOW dad is proud as can be!

Sam – Rest In Peace

1994 – 2009

a great knight

Good friends and neighbors had an extra ticket available for last evening’s game between the Washington Nationals & The Florida Marlins.  I was invited, and gladly accepted.  The seats were right behind home plate – couldn’t ask for a better vantage point to watch a game.

I noticed that seated just a behind us was a familiar face.  It was 1986 World Series MVP Ray Knight.  He was the 3rd baseman for the New York Mets that year.  Met fans have the image of Knight crossing the plate after the infamous Mookie Wilson to Bill Buckner ground ball forever in their mind’s eye.  OK – it wasn’t a crazy coincidence that he was at the game… he does the post-game wrapup show for the cable broadcasts of the Nats games.  Still, there was a sports hero of mine just a few yards away.

I was (naturally) wearing my blue & orange Mets jacket.  Between innings, I stood up, gestured to him (as my friend yelled “RAY!”) and he looked my way.  When he spotted my wave, I tapped on the big Mets logo on my chest, and gave him a big thumbs up.  He smiled, nudged his fellow broadcaster Johnny Holliday to get him to look over as well.  He returned the thumbs up, put down his scorecard & clapped, winked and nodded approvingly.

In today’s age of athletes and their multi-million dollar salaries & egos, it was terrific to be able to extend a greeting to a baseball superstar and have it humbly returned with genuine appreciation. Class.

Very special thanks to Jeff, Kristi, Jeremy & Alena.  What a great evening!

caution:new york philharmonic grandchildren at play

Ronald Roseman

I played an out-of-town gig this past weekend in Williamsburg, Virginia.  The other oboist that was hired to play was from the Norfolk area – Kevin Piccini.  Kevin is a great oboist, and a very nice guy.  I didn’t have to hear more than a few notes of his warmup to know that we are from the same ’school’ of oboe playing & philosophy.   He has a big, rich sound, and controls it masterfully.  We discovered that we are both ‘grandchildren’ of the New York Philharmonic’s legendary oboe section under

Engelbert Brenner

Bernstein.  I was a pupil of Engelbert Brenner, and he of Ronald Roseman.  Kevin speaks of his teacher with the same reverence I use to describe my mentor.  When not playing together, we were trading stories & comparing notes.  A 3 hour rehearsal flew by at rocket speed.  The performance was great, and the ‘oboe-ing’ was good & really fun!

Now the kicker – Kevin turns to me right before the lone rehearsal starts and says, “You’re Oboerista, aren’t you.”  I’m humbled and honored that a great oboist discovered and reads this blog.

peter’s perfect pitch perplexes parent

This morning, my five year old son became suddenly agitated as he played with one of his favorite toys.  It’s a firehouse.  The roof is lined with five buttons.  Each button triggers a different electronic sound.  Peter began to yell, “It sounds different – it sounds different!”  I went over, and pressed each button. The bell button still sounded the bell, the siren still sounded the siren noise, etc.  He grabbed the toy back, and repeatedly pressed the fire truck’s horn button.  ’Dad – it’s not right anymore – it’s the wrong sound now”, he cried.  I listened carefully – the diesel horn tooted the note F.  I grabbed a screw driver & removed the battery compartment cover.  I pulled out the aging AA batteries & replaced them with fresh ones.  With the new batteries in place, the diesel horn still sounded an F… but one that was ever-so-slightly higher in pitch – less than a quarter tone in my estimation.  Peter smiled & declared, “Now it sounds right, Dad – that’s the right noise”.

I better keep a safe distance when making reeds!

it’s bedtime – do the math

Peter watches a little TV in my bedroom before he goes into his own bed to sleep each evening.  There is a digital clock on top of the TV.  AT 8:40 pm, I told Peter that we’ll watch the movie Wall-E until 8:50pm, and then we’ll shut off the movie and go to his room to got to sleep.  He watched the movie for a few minutes, looked at the clock, and reported to me that it was 8:48.  We need to go to bed in 2 minutes.

Wait – that’s MATH!  Real, practical math.  Hmmmmm…

peter meets mario!