JOY-ful!

Magnet#342 - Joyful Heart

So like I said, I've been in an intro- and retrospective mood lately.

I was saving this magnet for some cheerful news, but my sister saw it, and it reminded her of our piano teacher Mrs. Louise Pinnix, who always used to call me "JOY-ful!" in her fabulous Southern accent - which I will always hear in my head for as long as I live. (She used to call my sisters, Tiger. I'm convinced it was just to keep from having to tell them apart. Heh.)

The three of us took piano from her for more than a dozen years each, and besides piano, she taught me words like mazurka, and alla turka, and gaddabout, and about people like Tchaikovksy and Bartok.

She was ever the consummate minister's wife, leading pilgrimages to the Holy Land every so often. And, I'm sure that job gave her the patience of Job, because we were all such a handful.

She'd enter us in state contests, make us recital each year, and gave us funny little composer busts every year for Christmas. And she scolded me all the time for not practicing, something I absolutely hated doing.

Which is funny, because I was the one who begged for lessons when I was five. And man, she loved telling everyone how this precious little girl (me, of course) learned how to play the piano by practicing on the kitchen table, before my parents bought our upright.

With three of us taking lessons at a time, that meant spending our free hour at her house each week, working on homework, reading or playing outside. Or better yet, hanging out with Mr. Pinnix back in the den, watching The Andy Griffth Show. He'd get started heating up their dinner, and even now 20-odd years later, I can still remember the smell of dinner cooking, while I sat on her easy chair, re-reading their old Readers Digests.

She was an amazing woman, and we were extremely lucky to know her and have her in our lives. She's probably upset with me up there, knowing that I won't play the piano now, but I've a feeling a lot of what she taught me was more valuable than middle C, anyway.