Clarinet

I feel hopeful about the possibility that I may acquire my grandfather's clarinet once again, and hang onto it for keeps. The instrument is not only amazing but it is so special and sentimental to me. It must never leave the family, that is for sure. If there is one thing I would like to do in honor of my grandpa and my love for him, it would be allowing that clarinet to live on. When I originally played it in my pre-teen years, I wanted a flute but ended up with the clarinet. I was pretty good at it, though, and I think it would be cool to pick it up again. Now that I have really come to appreciate a lot of jazz music that has clarinet in it, I want to get my hands on it, pronto.

I learned how to read music playing the clarinet. I went on Saturday mornings with my grandpa out to this older/elderly man's house, way out by the freeway exit by Mall 205 or Division or something, to have clarinet lessons. For a while I really put some effort into it, though I remember really not wanting to go at least one morning because my lesson was at nine or ten a.m. and let's face it, I've never been much of a morning person! But now, if my cousin returns the instrument to me, hopefully he will also have some of the lesson books that I probably returned along with the clarinet when I gave it back to my grandpa.

The interesting thing will be to see how this goes with the family. Should anyone find out that I am trying to take the instrument for my own possession, will anyone make it an issue? Or will they allow me to have it because they comprehend the respect I am trying to show for my grandfather by putting it to use or at least keeping it in the family? That is definitely a main objective. It will be so cool to have it in its cool little case that looks like a fat flute box. Obviously before they took clarinets totally apart and put them in those square-shaped, velvet-lined cases that all the ones at my middle school had, the instrument was just pulled apart in half and laid inside a thinner rectangular one. Or maybe that is just the case my grandfather's was in. In any case, I anxiously await a response from the cousin in Corvallis...