The Piano Players



Don and I were introduced to the piano in 1949. That must be the year because I remember the old upright we started on, and the vague memories of practicing on it. That was when we lived on Lafountain Street. We moved to East Sycamore Street in 1950 and that is the place at which most of my piano memories reside.

Don's son Lee  looking like a natural on the old Spinet, 1967

One of the first additions to our east side home was a new Spinet piano, a dark one with a shiny walnut finish. It sounded much better than the old clunker we had been pounding on, but along with the new piano came the edict that we were to increase our practice time from half an hour to a full hour each day - seven days a week. That is no small assignment for a ten year old, especially one that is not especially inspired by the opportunity to play a piano. That was me. I was a clock-watcher with eyes locked on the moving hand until the last minute slowly and finally clicked by, playing not a second longer than required, even stopping in the middle of a song - gone.

I like music and have always taken pride that I could read it and play the piano, but it has been a regret that the act of playing did not mesmerize me - like some who play past the clock, captivated by the rhythm of their moving hands as they unlock harmonic sounds of beauty. They are the ones bestowed with a special gift not granted to me.

Don and I walked downtown once a week. Our destination for five years was a building across from the Isis Theater on Main Street, a half block south of Sycamore. We climbed the stairs to the second floor studio of Sunshine Fitch, our teacher. Don carried three dollars in his pocket for two half-hour lessons. I don’t remember the cost for certain, but that sum is close. I don’t recall which of us took our lesson first, or if we alternated week by week, but the one waiting would sit quietly in the room while the other played the week’s assignment and received instruction for the following. Sometimes the one waiting would hang out in the narrow hall, but the starkly bare walls and dim lights offered a less stimulating environment than the studio so we didn’t linger there very long.

Miss Fitch was a spinster in her fifties. I wondered what happened to her and did an online check of the local newspaper, The Kokomo Tribune. There was an obituary listing for one Gladys Sunshine Fitch - born in 1897, died in 1986. That had to be her. I also found several announcements advertising piano recitals by the students of “Gladys Sunshine Fitch”, one in 1945. Don and I were in at least three of her recitals. Official recital photos showed the class and Miss Fitch grouped around a piano. She was nice a lady, slim, of medium height, and with glasses covering a kind face and sad eyes. I never knew anything more about her or saw her anywhere other than at her yearly recitals.

Sunshine Fitch's Recital, c1950 - Joe and Don, 1st row far right

I learned about fear and stage-fright from those recitals. I suffered through them with my stomach in knots, my pulse racing, and my hands trembling uncontrollably. It was a wonder I could play. I remember three pieces I played. “Little Black Sambo” was the tune I performed at my concert debut. I had it memorized and played through it as fast as I my fingers would traverse the keys – to heck with tempo or timing, just get it over. It was an innocuous tune and I no longer remember the melody. I performed “Under the Double Eagle” during a later recital. That title popped into my mind only after I started writing this piece. I looked it up on YouTube as I was curious as to what it sounded like, and found it to be a popular song I’ve heard many times. Unfortunately, the versions I heard on YouTube had nothing in common with the song I remember playing sixty years ago. Don and I teamed up to play a duet of “The Merry Widow Waltz” for one of our last recitals. That seemed to go well.

Sunshine Fitch's Recital, c1952 - Joe 2nd row left, Don back row center

We stopped taking lessons in 1954 and seldom sat down at the piano after that. I attended Hoosier Boys State three years later, between my junior and senior years. It was at Indiana University in Bloomington, and housed in the men’s quad, a big sprawling edifice. I walked by a lounge on several occasions and noticed a skinny black kid playing the piano. I stopped one evening when there was a small group of boys standing around the piano listening to him. He was pretty good. I mentioned that I had taken lessons and he got up and wanted me to play something. I should have kept my mouth shut. I wasn’t fishing for an invite, but that was what it must have sounded like. The next thing I knew I was sitting at the piano, but after an awkward minute of fumbling, admitted I no longer knew any songs . He said he never took lessons, had learned it by ear, and would have given anything to have had the chance. That one hour of practice had always been a chore to me, but a piano at home, and a chance for instruction, would have been a priceless gift to him.

Mary bought a piano shortly after we were married and took lessons for a while. She’s added a couple of guitars, and bought a concertina for me at Christmas in 1984 when she worked at Down Home Guitar. I liked the idea of a small portable instrument, and was a bit more successful with it. I sat up my studio in a downstairs room and taught myself to play. I was fairly consistent for several months then something intervened and I sat it aside, not getting back to it for several years. I’ve picked it up more than once since then, and even built a repertoire of a couple dozen of my favorite songs, but four or five years have how passed without it being taken from the case. We have four musical instruments in the house but our pursuit of them is, at best, lackadaisical. It seems we like music, and like the idea of playing music, but just don’t get around to it with much consistency.

Don did a little better, but I understand it to be only by a small degree. Our shiny piano of years ago eventually became scratched and worn, and some ivory went missing from the keys. It sat idle at the old Sycamore home until Don moved it to the Wisconsin farm he and Ellie bought in the mid-seventies. It stayed behind when they sold the farm a decade afterward. I ran across a good deal on a nice keyboard at a garage sale and sent it to him for Christmas some years afterward. Ellie and the kids bought a stand for it, but it mainly lingered by the wayside - like an abandoned orphan.

The Life of Donald Lee Buckingham (1938-2002)

Our Early Years, 1940 -1950

 

 For ten years I considered my brother Don to be the toughest kid on the block, the one others looked up to, the one nobody messed with. He was my hero, my protector. Of course that was the opinion of a child nearly void of life’s experiences, and whose physical realm was limited to one city block in a small Indiana town. I eventually began to see Don as one who possessed both strengths and frailties, and as that knowledge accumulated I readjusted my judgments of his position among us fellow mortals.

My image of his stature was not transformed by one single event, but by small incidents that tended to confuse me. I thought of him as being all knowing and capable. Then a dog appeared in the neighborhood one day. It was a cute little puppy, no more than few weeks old, with a fish hook embedded in its tongue. The other kids all cleared a path as Don came onto the scene. Someone said “He’ll fix it”. He knelt down, opened the dog’s mouth, and tugged lightly at the short piece of line attached to the hook. He looked again, tugged again, and then announced he could not get it out. I had witnessed my brother’s first failure. That happened in 1946 when he was eight years old. I was six when I experienced my first disillusionment.

I thought of him as being invincible, but that illusion was also shattered. One day we were walking on the backside of our block, on the street running parallel to Lafontain, our home street. A boy crossed from the neighboring block and tried to start a fight by standing on the walk blocking our way. I’d never seen him before and I don’t think Don knew him. Don edged to the side attempting to step around the boy, but the fellow crowded him, hooking his leg around Don’s, trying to trip him. He persisted but Don wouldn’t fight. The thought flitted through my mind that maybe Don was scared of him. The bully finally left after some taunting and verbal abuse. I noticed he was bigger and probably a year older than Don. When you’re nine or ten a year can make a heap of difference. I  understood why he wouldn‘t fight, but it still hurt.

 

Don had a potential for being an athlete with few peers. There was a lot of natural athletic ability in him, but he didn’t seem to have a lot of interest in sports. When he was in the seventh or eighth grade he tried out for the Central Junior High football team. I fully expected him to be playing first string, but he was relegated to the sidelines in every game. Most players had real football jerseys, but Don wore an old sweater stretched over his shoulder pads. I can yet visualize him kneeling there, fidgeting and eager to get in the game, but hardly every called. I still think the coach played favorites. I knew Don’s abilities, had seen him in action on dirt lots before and after. He was a good athlete, could have played varsity, could have been a champ, but he didn’t get a chance, and never went out for sports again.

The First Separation, 1956-1958

 

I am mainly an optimist about life’s adventures, but I remember the first time I had a bit of unease about the future. That was when Don went off to college. The two of us had been as close as brothers can be through the early years. I don’t honestly remember the anxiety I must have felt, too many years have passed, but do remember what it had been like. Those first sixteen years could be described as like those of Siamese twins, joined at the hip. We did everything together, from piano lessons, to sporting events, to family chores.

There were really three of us, inseparable for years. Lamar Hammer became like a brother, the third musketeer, after he and Don met in the sixth grade at Central. During those years we walked many miles together, miles in passage between our homes, miles to school and city events, and more miles exploring the countryside along Wildcat Creek east of town. Our separation came after they graduated from high school in 1956. Lamar signed for a hitch in the Air Force and left within a month. Don enrolled at Purdue University in Lafayette, Indiana and went missing in the fall. My life took a drastic turn.

I’m not certain which of us was most affected by the separation. I was on my own for the first time and forced onto a path that was probably better for me. It gave me a taste of independence I’d never known, and set me on a path leading to greater self-confidence. I returned to familiar Kokomo High School as a junior that fall, but I had to do things on my own, make new friends, and find my own way.

I tried out for the football team but discovered that one-hundred and forty pounds doesn’t carry much weight in the sport. I started going to the Teen Canteen after school and on weekend nights. The place occupied a large space on the second floor of a building on the town square and had a free jukebox, a dance floor, ping pong and pool tables. I found my niche high-jumping on the track team that spring, and surprised myself in discovering I was a better-than-average cross-country runner in my senior year.

Don went off to Purdue, but seemed to develop a disliked for it almost immediately. Maybe he was too alone and in a place that was too far from home? Lafayette lies fifty miles west of Kokomo. Purdue University has two main schools, Agriculture and Engineering. Don enrolled as an engineering student. In 1956 engineering was a popular career choice. It seemed to be a national goal to produce more engineers, and that is what Dad wanted for Don. I’m not certain if Don wanted that. He and I didn’t talk much about such things, but he had been tracked in that direction for some time. It was always understood that both of us were going to college; he, being the oldest, was going to be an engineer. Nothing was ever hinted as to what my profession was to be, and no one asked Don what he wanted.

I think he was conflicted. Dad was not an overbearing person. He simply assumed Don would automatically want the same thing as he. Don was the oldest, the smartest, and the one with the most promise, so Dad put all of his aspirations on him, and the results were a life-long disappointment for both. I knew of Don’s unhappiness early on. He told me one night as we lay in bed that he didn’t want to go back, but he couldn’t tell Dad that because he would be letting him down.

Somewhere in the middle of the second year the school sent him home. Mom told me years later that he had been caught breaking into a teacher’s office. It was his second attempt and the campus police were waiting for him. He had been trying to find test copies. The school suspended him for the remaining of the year. I have always wondered if he might have done it so he could come home.  Don’s life started out with so much promise, but over the years it seemed to crumble, and I think it may have started there at Purdue with an unhappy situation and a bad decision. Don came home and we fell back into our routine as if he had never left. It may seem strange to many, but we never spoke of the incident, not then, not ever.

Don planned a bus trip to Mexico in June of 1958, right after I graduated from high school, and asked if I’d like to join him. It surprises me yet that I declined, but I had become more independent, developing my own interests and friendships, during the two years he was away. The relationship we had shared during those early years was forever changed, and the two of us became more like equals after that.

He headed south on a bus traveling all the way to Mexico City and Acapulco by himself. He was gone several weeks, and eventually hooked up and traveled with a guy he met on the bus. I no longer remember the fellow’s name, but the two exchanged letters for several years afterward. Don seemed to have had a good time, and told enough about the trip that, in retrospect, I wish I’d have gone with him. But I was traveling in my own universe, and not interested at the time. Instead, I spent my summer working at a small manufacturing shop owned by a family friend and hanging out at the local swimming pool nearly every evening.

Cancer on My Mind

Part 7 – Battle Scars and The Devil’s Node – January 9, 2013

More than seven months have passed since I was diagnosed with esophageal/gastric cancer. I feel somewhat like the man who steps off a ten story building, free-falls several flights, hasn’t reached bottom, but thinks the view is great and all’s well… so far.

I continue to feel fine, have plenty of energy and maintain a stable weight. I’ve been a vegan four and a half months, lost ten pounds in the first six weeks, but have stayed a consistent 185 since. I eat all I want, and that’s a bonus of being vegan – no calorie counting. I prepare about one meal a day, spending time cutting vegetables or choosing spices, and often freeze a quart from some of the pots: beans, vegetable soup, etc. Snacking is my favorite mode of eating though – a cup of beans, a celery stalk, carrots, then a handful of nuts followed by a small bowl of dried fruit. I graze all day and through the night.

After completing chemo and radiation therapies, and rejecting surgery, I had the dilemma of deciding my next move. I’ve reached my limit for radiation, at least of the stomach, and I consider chemo as a poison that will eventually wear me down as it slowly destroys my blood and immune systems. Cancer cannot be cured, not by the present array of medical treatments. Doctors shoot cancer with radiation, poison it with Chemicals, or cut it out surgically, but that doesn’t cure it – It too often pops up in new places. And while the doctors are shooting at my cancer, they are hitting me. I therefore decided to try an alternate path in the treatment of my cancer.

Primarily I switched from an animal based food diet to a plant based diet – I became a vegan. I also continued to take a daily regimen of multi-vitamins and minerals, along with additional doses of vitamins C and E because they are both powerful anti-oxidants. I chose four specific supplements to help fight the cancer: Turmeric, glutamine, IP6 (inositol hexophosphate), and beta-Glucan. Modern medical science has shown an ever increasing interest in the four, and numerous research studies can be found on the Internet.

I was due for another CT scan in December. The question entered my mind as to why I should even bother with more tests. The surgeon would want another scan, but I wasn’t going to be cut, and I would be hard pressed to submit to any more traditional treatments – no matter what the tests showed. But I was curious about what might be found and how it could help me make informed decisions.

My oncologist, Dr. Verneeda Spencer, scheduled a CT scan for December 5th and a meeting on the fourteenth to discuss the results. The good news: the tumor was gone, replaced by a patch of scar tissue. The bad news: a couple of nodes have enlarged. Dr. Spencer read parts of the report. My first impression was that it was rather vague – nothing definitive other than the tumor was gone.

The more troublesome finding: One of the lymph nodes in the left Supraclavicular fossa, close to the base of my neck was enlarged. She examined the area but could sense nothings more than “maybe” a bit of swelling. She offered three options: 1. Do nothing for the time being and have another scan in two months; 2. Biopsy the lymph node in the Supraclavicular fossa, and if malignant; 3. shoot the “Bomb”, Herceptin. She said the radiologist was conservative in his approach and if he didn’t think the biopsy could be done then option number one (wait) would be our default. I told her that I had to think about it. Later that evening she left the message that the biopsy could be done, and wondered how I wanted to proceed. I didn’t want to be hurried. I returned her call after the weekend and told her I had decided to wait three months, have another CT scan and then decide.

I received a copy of the report a few days later and perused it (with the aid of a dictionary) to decide my next move. The Supraclavicular fossa is that triangular depression at the base of the neck, behind the clavicle. Its lymph node is called Virchow’s Node. Virchow's Node takes its supply from the abdominal lymph nodes, and is also described as "the seat of the devil". One that is enlarged and palpably hard (a condition referred to as Troisier's sign) is regarded as a signal of gastric cancer. Mine was enlarged but not hardened, and finding the enlarged node was no surprise. I already knew I had a gastric tumor; radiation had obliterated it. The doctor was not able to feel any sign of a palpably hard object, and I run my fingers over it several times a day and cannot feel anything either. So what does all that mean? Has the cancer metastasized? I’ve read of other causes for swollen lymph nodes – a cold, the flu, infection. It’s not an uncommon phenomenon, but then again, I do have cancer.
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