Dedication to practicing the piano
Before my parents first got divorced, they had an old reed organ that pumped. And so I was learning how to play the organ, and the nuns at the school began teaching me how to play the piano. Then the mice got into the organ and I couldn’t play it anymore. I just played the keys and memorized it in my head and practiced that way. And then my parents couldn’t afford music lessons, so the nuns let me clean their practice rooms for the lessons. And so I did that, and then when I was in high school I started to play the organ in church, which was really neat, and when I was little I liked music because of church. You know, and they sang a lot in school, and so I just kept doing that. And so, until we got a piano after my mom got divorced, we, I just had a keyboard that was paper, and just practiced it, and then went to school and practiced in the practice rooms when I got to school. And then they were getting a new piano and they asked me if I could have one. Well, we just had a really small house so we couldn’t, but I talked my older sister into letting me have it at her house, that she just lived across the street, down the street. And so I’d go over there. And they finally had to set a timer because I would play for hours and hours, and you know, “Hey, won’t you ever go home?” Whatever, but it was really nice. And so, I really enjoyed singing. We were in a lot of concerts. We’d go to a concert for the whole state for the church, you know, the school and stuff. And it was really fun to sing.