AUGUST 30, 2025 – (Cont.) My second memorable experience with an invalid assumption occurred two years later.
By way of background . . . I was still very much embattled over the violin: my parents wanted me to study it seriously, whereas I wanted nothing to do with it. But by now things had gotten a lot worse—I was losing the battle, big time. Not only was I still harangued every day about practicing, but against my will and desire, in addition to my usual Saturday violin lessons, I’d been signed up for all-day Saturday solfege (ear-training) and music theory classes, followed by chamber orchestra rehearsal. All of these activities were under the spacious roof of The Gilombardo School of Music on the second floor of the “Campus Cobbler” store in an old faux Alpine chalet building in the heart of Dinkytown adjacent to the main campus of the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis. My sisters and I could walk there and back from our grandparents’ house four blocks away, where Mother or Dad—depending on who was chauffeur that Saturday—hung out during our musical immersion.
Most of the other kids, it seemed, were from the upscale Minneapolis suburb of Edina or from tony parts of Minneapolis itself. Also, it seemed to me, they were a bunch of brainiacs and far better instrumentalists than anyone we knew from our town of Anoka, Halloween Capital of the World. My sisters, being brainiacs as well as serious violinists, fit right in, but I experienced a spike in my inferiority complex next to everyone else I encountered at the school.
There was one kid, however, who could run with the crowd but hailed from Coon Rapids, one town down the pike from Anoka, and from our Anokan perspective, at least one rung down in reputation, as well. He also happened to be my stand partner in the orchestra, so I got to know him better than any of the other kids. His name was Peter and he was a year ahead of me in school. He was a far superior violinist, and I could tell by the way he talked that he was a very smart kid, as well. He was perfectly polite and respectful toward me, even though I knew he had to know that between the two of us, he was the superior musician and intellect. As time advanced, however, instead of feeling more comfortable around him, I felt just the opposite, as if one Saturday he’d finally dispense with his politeness and just come out and say it: “How did I get paired up with you, when you can’t play a tenth as well as I can? And besides, where do you go to school, anyway? . . . Because you’re not very smart.”
I began to resent what I assumed was his conscious superiority.
Then one fine day out of the blue appeared an opportunity to rub his nose in the mud . . . a bit, anyway and figuratively speaking. For some reason, Peter’s mom was unable to pick him up after orchestra rehearsal and had asked Mother if we could ferry him home to Coon Rapids on our way back to Anoka. Thus, after another long Saturday at the Gilombardo School of Music, I found myself scrunched in the back seat of Mother’s car, sitting next to our extra passenger—my stand partner whom I’d grown to resent.
The radio was on and tuned to WCCO, the station of general programing—including sportscasts and the daily market reports on corn, wheat and pork bellies—that catered to grown-ups. Suddenly, I had a brilliant idea. I could shock Peter, violinist par excellence and A-plus student, by revealing my contempt for classical music. By doing so, I could smoke out what I’d perceived as his own contempt for my inferiority.
“Ah!” I said, loud enough to get Mother’s attention, as well as Peter’s, “Why can’t we listen to something else, like KDWB?” KDWB, of course, was one of two rock ‘n roll stations in the Twin Cities. Surely the proper and sophisticated violinist/scholar Peter would be scandalized by rock ‘n roll music and more to the point, by my express request for it.
“What?!” he exclaimed. “You want to listen to KDWB?!” It had worked. I’d smoked him out. I’d hit a chord, and it was wholly dissonant.
But I wanted to make sure. “Why?” I said.
“You’ve got to be kidding. WeeGee, all day long!” said Peter. “WeeGee” was the nickname of “WDGY,” the other rock ‘n roll station in the Twin Cities. “They play top 10 more often and have fewer ads,” Peter said, unwittingly rubbing my own nose in the figurative mud.
I couldn’t believe my ears. The guy I’d assumed to be a 30-year old professor of music in the body of a seventh grader actually liked rock ‘n roll music. I was dumbfounded. As I silently pondered his response, I realized that he’d made a big deal about WeeGee probably for the same reason I’d requested KDWB—as a way to demonstrate that all either of us wanted really was to “fit in”; to be accepted as a normal kid. From an objective standpoint, Peter was normal; a perfectly nice and genuine kid who happened to be a superb violinist and simply a very smart kid, and what was wrong with any of that? Absolutely nothing, I told myself. The only thing wrong with the whole picture had been my assumption that he looked down on me because he deserved to, when in reality, he was perfectly okay with me and simply wanted to be accepted for who he was.
Again—lesson learned about making assumptions. (Cont.)
Subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.
© 2025 by Eric Nilsson
