INHERITANCE (PART ONE: MOTHER / Chapter 4 – “Acts and Cast” (Section 2 – “On Stage . . . and Almost on Tour”))

JUNE 11, 2023 – (Cont.) One day when I was in second grade, flyers were distributed as we kids stampeded out the doorway. The leaflets promoted “David Rubinoff and his Violin” in matinee and evening “concerts” the following day at the Anoka High School Auditorium. The next day happened to be a day off from school.  Most of the flyers wound up in the trash bin just outside the school exit or in the gutter within a three-block radius of Franklin Elementary.  Mine made it all the way home, however, and when Mother and Dad saw the name “David Rubinoff,” they chattered rather excitedly.  The name meant nothing to me, but then my parents explained that David Rubinoff had been a kind of famous violinist—when they were young.  Following the path established by our grandfather Nilsson and already well-traveled by my two older sisters, I had by then been playing the violin for over two years. I had heard of Fritz Kreisler and Jascha Heifetz, which were household names to us, but I wasn’t sure what a “kind of famous violinist” was.

What I remember next is Mother hauling me to David Rubinoff’s matinee concert the following afternoon.  I also remember that I had my violin in tow.  I honestly do not remember if taking my violin was her suggestion or my idea, for I was just as capable as she was—or maybe it was a capability born of her example—of taking unconventional action. Only later would her “unconventional actions” embarrass me,  just as much later, my “unconventional actions” would embarrass my spouse and kids.  After what passed for a concert by Mr. Rubinoff, she took my hand and led me back stage to meet the maestro.  She talked to him as if they were life-long acquaintances, and the next thing I knew, he asked me to take out my violin and play something.

I played what I thought was a recognizable arrangement, as it were, of the opening melody of Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto.  To any serious student of the violin, that is an utterly laughable image, as unimaginable as what would ensue from it. But sometimes total naïveté, especially in a seven-year old kid, bolstered by his parent’s encouragement to try anything, can spur an attempt at the impossible. Yet, my “inspiration” and Mother’s support had a source: our home record library included a no-name label recording of the Mendelssohn—part of a larger collection that Dad had acquired at a discount—and at about that time in my life, Mother put the concerto on the phonograph for me every night just before I went to bed. You might say it was my first romance.

However bad my rendition of the Mendelssohn sounded, David Rubinoff’s career—clearly dead-ended, as proved by his appearance in the cultural backwater of Anoka, Minnesota—needed new blood desperately, and suddenly, I was it, thanks to Mother’s chutzpah.  He told me to return for the evening show and promised that I would be part of it.

Mother dutifully returned me and my violin to the high school auditorium that evening.  What was even stranger than my reappearance was the fact that Kay Jacobson joined us.  And where might Dad have been?  I cannot imagine why he was not present, but he must have been at an out-of-town conference, which would have given his absence a convenient excuse.

On cue from Mr. Rubinoff, I strode out on stage, peered into the blinding lights and thought I saw a large crowd of people. The great entertainer introduced me and invited me to play “the Mendelssohn.”  As I performed, I could see Mother and her tic . . . along with Kay Jacobson . . . in the front row a few seats off to the right.  Kay looked as judgmental as ever. I wondered if her hair had always been in a bun and if she took her glasses off when she went to bed.  Before I could answer my own off-the-wall questions about Kay, I had exhausted all I knew of the melody from the Mendelssohn.  The crowd applauded and Mr. Rubinoff instructed me to step off the stage quietly and take my seat next to my mother and to put my violin away after the concert.

When I reached Mother, who had brought my violin case with her from back-stage, I decided to put my violin away promptly to keep it safe. After the concert, we met up with Mr. Rubinoff back-stage again, and Mother and he talked, and he made some mention of me joining his “road show.”  Mother said cordially that she and Dad would have to discuss it.

She then invited Kay Jacobson to stop by for coffee, and Kay readily accepted.  While Mother fixed me a dish of vanilla ice-cream with chocolate syrup from a Hershey’s can parked in the refrigerator since first grade, Mother and Kay discussed my prospects as David Rubinoff’s side-kick.  In her inimitable way, Kay said, “If Eric wants to be on stage with David Rubinoff, he’s going to have to do a better job of following directions.  I noticed that Eric put his violin away after Mr. Rubinoff had specifically told him not to.” My silent reaction was, “Well, for all her smarts, Kay Jacobson doesn’t understand the value of a violin.” (From the time I first held a violin, my elders had drilled into me that the instrument should be treated as the most fragile and valuable thing I’d ever be allowed to touch.)

The next day Mother called David Rubinoff at his hotel in Minneapolis and invited him to Sunday dinner.  He accepted the invitation, and Dad and I drove down to pick him up and ferry him to our house.  After a dinner over which Mother had gone all out (which, for her was a big deal, since cooking was not her forte) we drove David Rubinoff to the Greyhound bus terminal in Minneapolis and put the “famous kind of violinist” on a coach bound for his next gig*.  Fortunately, I did not accompany him.

(But what in the world was Mother thinking, even remotely, to have her seven-year-old son join the had-been “David Rubinoff” on national tour to towns like Anoka?)(Cont.)

*If you want pure, unapologetic entertainment, sample “Rubinoff and his violin” in their heyday and click on these links: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TUqnv4ijh5g and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ke7TYEVUGvU

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© 2023 by Eric Nilsson