The Raging Elitist

Cartter takes his guitar all over the house with him. He sits on the couch with it resting in his lap. He lies on the living room floor with it laid across his stomach. His mother bought him a stand so he could set it in his room, but when an urge strikes (and an urge often strikes), he runs into his room to grab his new appendage and sets to strumming. Seated at the keyboard playing alongside him and singing out chord changes, I feel wonderfully useful in his quest to learn the instrument and am filled with encouragement at his obvious desire. Mere weeks into his musical journey, I’m convinced Cartter has what it takes to weather the tedium of learning to play. I foresee for him a path to musicianship that is free of the agony I faced at the piano bench.

Cartter’s recent guitar binge started when Danyelle took him and Scotty on a tour of the nearby “School of Rock.” There, a couple nerdy, shy instructors showed the boys how to play the opening melody to the White Stripes’ “Seven Nation Army,” Cartter on guitar, and Scotty on keys, and the two came home begging to be signed up for weekly lessons. Even more exciting, the school’s program requires weekly band practice too. I balked at first. The kids pretend to be in a band with their neighborhood friend (Their practice sessions mostly involve a cacophony of discordant piano rhythms and bongos); they’re captivated by the sight of performers on stage; and Cartter has a classmate who performed on electric guitar in the third-grade class production. I saw the vain fantasy of becoming rock stars in the kids’ pleading eyes, not a true desire to play. Among my concerns were the burden of another afterschool activity, the time commitment of daily practice, and the high likelihood that our boys would flake, thereby learning more about quitting than music. Plus, the school isn’t free. The boys stared at me wide-eyed and ready to agree with anything I said while I gave a serious talk about frustration and perseverance before ultimately acquiescing to their wishes. After watching the old Gibson my dad bought me when I was eleven become an extension of Cartter’s body and soul the last two weeks, I’m glad I did. He learns chords from my mother’s old Reader’s Digest “Treasury of Beloved Songs” book (copyright 1972) that has charts above every measure. He kneels on the floor while strumming and already has calloused fingers. When we play together, the way he looks at me, I can tell his mind is rapidly making connections.

Scotty’s path to musicianship is not so clear to me. He said he wanted to learn piano because I know how to play, and he wants to be like me, but I’m almost certain that was just a ploy. Within a week, he asked if he could switch to the guitar like his brother. Maybe, my keyboard knowledge is a bit of an obstacle for him. When I tried to walk him through the proper fingering to the White Stripes tune he’s supposed to learn, I was reminded of all the tearful sessions at the piano bench with my mother. Scotty cried in frustration, and when I put him to bed that night, he said, “I feel like I’m so bad.” I told him that of course he’s bad. He doesn’t know how to play yet. Does he think I was really good when I first tried to learn? If he practices every day for a year, then he’ll be a lot better. Scotty has since recovered. He doesn’t practice as much as Cartter, but he practices a good bit.

As an aside I’m compelled to mention another frank conversation I had with the boys, this one regarding their penchant for petty arguments that end with physical injury. Twice now, Cartter has managed to get a piece of Scotty’s head with a baseball bat while playing out in the yard. Apparently, his mother and I didn’t shame the two of them enough after the first time. This go round we each broke out the big guns. Danyelle went ballistic and asked Cartter if he wanted his brother to be permanently disfigured, a notion which sent Cartter to his room in crying hysterics. When I got home, I calmly called the boys into the living room and explained that I’d never hit anyone with a bat, nor had I ever been hit by a bat; that’s just not the sort of person I am; it is, however, the sorts of people they are.

It got worse. I asked them if they talked about Jesus at their school (it’s Episcopal), and when they said yes, I explained that these hurtful things they do to one another are the reason Jesus died, that in effect, they killed Jesus. There was much holding back of tears and cradling of faces in hands, mostly by Cartter.

Despite the boys’ sending Jesus to his crucifixion with their idiotic mishandling of the bat, I’m still encouraged by their recent interest in baseball. I think perhaps it arose because we’ve taken them to a couple of games so far this year. They’ll spend up to an hour at a time playing catch in the yard, and they frequently end up in games with neighbors, arguing balls and strikes and making up rules. I’m happy for them to be bonding with other kids and engaging in sports (although I sometimes worry about the additional strain all the throwing puts on their arms on top of their regular swim regimen). They never really got into Little League, which I always figured they would. I loved playing baseball in the spring – the terror of a ball smashed in your vicinity on the infield, the feeling of standing in the box and squaring one up. I was an all-star every year I played in the Isle of Palms rec league. I’ll always remember the ringing single up the middle I got off a kid with a mustache who was rumored to be throwing in the mid-60s when IOP played against the Mount Pleasant all-stars when I was eleven. So too will I remember calling my mother into my bedroom as a twelve-year-old the following spring and informing her that I would forego playing baseball to focus on swimming. It was a sad day.

Already, my boys are starting down a similar road of specialization. The plan is for Cartter to come out to North Charleston to swim with me three times a week starting next fall. His brother will come at least twice. If we add weekly music classes to the schedule, there’s not a lot of wiggle room left for things like rec basketball or baseball. Hopefully, the driveway hoop and the neighborhood gang make up for the absence of those organized activities. Hopefully, the homework load doesn’t increase too much come fall. We’re entering into what I always imagined would be the golden age of parenting with both kids older than six and younger than twelve; I find myself very aware of all the forks in the road, the way the choices we help the boys make are necessarily at the expense of alternatives, and I hate that Cartter and Scotty have to miss out on things they might enjoy. I understand better now the life of the “young families” that I’ve always recruited for year-round swimming. No longer are we “new parents” with kids content to lie around the house and play make believe. The boys crave action and want to be out in the community. They want to sample what life has to offer. They’re developing tastes and trying out identities, and they’re in a hurry to find one that suits them and stick with it. It’s a little like shoe shopping, wanting to find exactly the right pair of sneakers but also wanting to get the hell out of the store as quickly as possible.

For now, music classes look like they’ll be a fixture in the weekly calendar. Cartter explained to me near tears that summer reading and journaling was too much to ask because, “There’s no time.” He doesn’t like the idea that other kids at the music school have been practicing all the songs he’s to learn and that he’s currently “behind.” In other words, he wants to get the heck out of the store with his new shoes already. His electric guitar came in the mail today, replete with a tiny amp. “It’s here!” he said when we pulled into the driveway. At least I learned a few chords on the old Gibson, so it won’t be relegated to the closet again. I just hope Cartter doesn’t start wanting to grow his hair out and wear all black. Then, I might regret not putting him in Little League.