BOCCE

    BALLS

“Rip out the street,” he said. “Send it to the stars.”

He'd wished, without much thought, for a grappling hook. And now it seemed that a claw had dragged back this '38 Chevy convertible, complete with its well known rumble seat, which had its own history. Memories within memories, and all set for a tour down moonlit lanes. Or maybe the far end of some telescopic dream.

However or whatever, there it sat impossibly. What do you do with such a thing? No one had explained that, much less even the most necessary, rudimentary tools. A crescent wrench? For the record now, in 1915 the Crescent Tool Company had invented an adjustable spanner, for which it was assigned a U.S. patent. And now, more than 60 years after the appearance of the Chevy convertible, and after using a Crescent in maintaining my '57 Chevy gardening truck, there is no mystery. But quite simply, who cares?

Before any of this, since age 6, something had been festering.

After hearing a tympani, I wanted a drum. My parents got me a street drum, set it up on the living room couch, and even got a teacher, Dick Rainier. We started. Paradiddle, flam! Immediately, I turned that into a 5-stroke roll. “Let me train him. When he's eight he'll be ready to join the San Francisco Opera.” And I did so want to accompany Ezio Pinza, who'd sung there it seemed, directly for me.

So dad moved us from San Carlos to Los Gatos and sent me off to Montezuma, where there was no musical instruction whatever. Horse back riding, living in a pueblo, long hikes in the woods that I actually liked, rifle practice. No music.

Come eighth grade graduation, and to save money, dad decided I should go on to Los Gatos High. Studies there were dull and stupid – but – also happening was a marching band. Right next to the school band room was Church Street, where they practiced. The irony of this didn't strike me right away. The only music played at Montezuma was on Sunday. Prof would deliver his Prairie Home Companion sermon/lecture. A lady would come to play the organ.

Out on Church Street, when the band launched into The Thunderer, that was maybe even better than Ezio Pinza.

As my sophomore year dragged to a close, finally I got the courage and went by myself to ask Orrin Blattner, the director, if I might join the band, even though I didn't play an instrument. He loaned me one of the school's silver clarinets, showed how to finger it, how the notes related to sheet music. “This summer,” he said, “go practice. When you come back, audition.”

Between that and a '38 Chevy, it was no contest. By senior year, I was solo clarinetist for the orchestra, played first chair for the band, lead tenor sax for the pep band, and drums in Tom Clark's dance band for hire. I failed to appreciate the machine.

Out there where it sat and just to the right of the rumble seat was a bocce ball court that was actually fun a few times. To the left of the court was a low stone wall, making an island with several trees and, incongruously, a 200-gallon tank for storing gasoline. The previous owner, an Italian, also had an artichoke farm in Watsonville and thought in terms of large agricultural trucks.

Dad's business minded attempt to divert my musical aspirations had failed. And if I had thought about it, which has only occurred later, my non-contribution to the fossil fuel transformation just beginning then was also a revolution.

An honorable end to the family impasse came after graduation. I took myself to the US Air Force recruiting station in San Jose.

Events leading to my brief musical interlude came along in a natural way, forming this cameo description. What it frames is the reality of an inborn musical sense all of us embody, a sense of harmony. The circadian rhythm of many bodily functions is entrained in beating hearts, and what has been called the music of the spheres is discovered within. In these times when we are compared with blank computers simply waiting for data, I find an inheritance that precedes any invention.

And how can a '38 Chevy compare?

Let me supply a closing note: I was born in '38. Take it from there, maestro.