Music Class

You know, being a kid is hard sometimes.  You get life all figured out in your family, and then you have to go to school and figure it out there.  Then, just when you start getting a handle on how things work in school someone decides you need to broaden your horizons and learn how to get along in all kinds of other situations.  At least, that's what happened to me.

When we moved to our new house we also moved into a new sub-community of Mesa, the east side.  It was cool, I guess, but it meant new friends, new acquaintances, new people we went to church with and new associates for Mom and Dad.  One of those new associations was Mrs. White, the High School music teacher.  She and her husband lived in our neighborhood and belonged to our ward at church.  The year I turned seven Mrs. White decided to form a singing group for young children, and she invited Mom to let Keith and I join.  I was not happy.

Keith didn't mind so much because his best friend, Richard Brinton, also had to join.  Keith and Richard were a year older than me, and they were cool.  I was shy, chubby, and socially inept.  Keith and Richard liked the class because there were cute girls.  I hated it because there were boys.  Who wants to sit in a chair next to a boy and have to sing loud enough for him to hear you?  Not only that, the boys my age were dumb, stupid, and gross.  At least, the ones who I had to sit by were.

Mrs. White began by teaching us how to properly pronounce our words.  We spent one whole class learning how to pop our P's.  That was actually kind of fun.  We spent an hour memorizing, then repeating the rhyme:

Peter Piper Picked a Peck of Pickled Peppers.  A Peck of Pickled Peppers, Peter Piper Picked.  If Peter Piper Picked a Peck of Pickled Peppers, Where's the Peck of Pickled Peppers Peter Piper Picked?

At first we just mumbled along, then we spit all over ourselves, but by the end of the hour we were getting pretty good at popping those P's, and saying the rhyme faster and faster.

The only other song I remember learning in that class was, "Don't Fence Me In."  I think I learned it good because Keith and Richard liked it and sang it over and over again in the car as we drove to and from our lessons.  I guess they must have been in a cowboy faze about then.  Anyway, Mom didn't make us continue taking music lessons for too long.  I think she really didn't have the money to spend, or the time to drive us back and forth, so she kept us in the token amount of time necessary to show her support, then she let us off the hook.  Thank goodness.  I still can say Peter Piper better than anyone else I know, though.