APRIL 16, 2024 – (Cont.) Over the two or three years during which we chummed around, Bobby and I alternated between being good friends and not-so-good friends. Perhaps it was boredom that bred contempt or just the opposite—with no one else to play with, we decided to make the best of time with the one available kid.
A prime example of the boredom-contempt was one cloudy afternoon when we’d landed inside the Snyder house, as usual, by ourselves, after having ridden our bikes up and down Rice a million times. We were watching the 4:00 movie on TV, which turned out to be as boring as the millionth ride up and down the street. As we lay sprawled on the carpet, Casey Ward appeared at the front screen door. He lived farther down the street from our end, and though Casey was often a member of our neighborhood escapades, such as they were, he was a closer chum with Bobby than Casey was with me. Nevertheless, I was offended when before Casey had a chance to announce his presence, Bobby snapped to life, leapt off the floor, sprang to the front doorway and said, “Casey! Wanna play?”
Even though by that point I was as bored with Bobby as he clearly was with me, I thought it was bad form for him to reward the Ward kid with the friendlies and leave me in the dust, especially considering that I was the elder of the three of us. As Bobby let Casey in, I let myself out and rode my bike home.
A few days later, however, Bobby unwittingly redeemed himself by saving me from Schubert’s Unfinished Symphony. The occasion was soon after supper at our house. Before I could escape, Dad pulled me aside and said he wanted me to listen to something.
“Sit down on the sofa,” he said, as I berated myself for not having fled the house when I’d had the chance. He opened the cabinet doors under the hi-fi turntable drawer of the divider between the dining room and living room and ran his fingers across the countless albums of classical music recordings in his prized collection.
Out came the familiar jacket featuring a close-up photo of a bird’s nest with four robin blue eggs. After my personal transformation into a classical music aficionado of an intensity my parents could only dream and pray would one day occur, I would play the record on my own initiative many times. It featured Fritz Reiner conducting the Chicago Symphony performances of both the Unfinished and Schubert’s Symphony No. 5.
But on that particular evening when the beautiful weather beckoned me to jump on my bike and race around the neighborhood or . . . coast down to the beach and skip rocks as far as I could across the lazy summer current of the Mississippi or . . . ride down to the empty half of Benzians’ deep river lot to join a pick-up baseball game or . . .find pretty much anything to do as long as it was outside, I was forced to sit still on the sofa next to Dad and listen to Schubert’s Unfinished Symphony. For all of his marathon monologues about his own boyhood memories, did Dad not have a clue about what it was like to be a kid—especially in the summertime which meant it was vacation time?
While Dad leaned back, closed his eyes and assumed the look of someone who’d been transported straight to paradise, my eyes were wide open and trained on the front doorway. The main door was open, and I had a straight-line view across the living room through the screen door to the here-and-now Eden that was our street with its magnificent trees, spacious yards, and quiet beauty on a nice warm summer evening with plenty of daylight left for enjoying the great outdoors.
Just then, as I planned my moves immediately following the music, who should appear at the door but . . . Bobby Snyder. He cupped his face with his hands and pressed his nose to the screen to have a look inside. Seeing me, an obvious prisoner to my dad and Schubert, Bobby waved and motioned for me to come to the door.
It was the serendipitous break I hadn’t anticipated. I didn’t care how boring Bobby could be or how much I disliked him sometimes or what idea he might have or lack for the rest of the evening. Then and there he was my rescuer.
“Dad,” I said, “can I go play with Bobby? I can listen to this some other time.” I had nothing specific in mind as to what “some other time” might be, just that it wasn’t now, but I felt a little bad for Dad at the same time I didn’t feel so bad, and to have it both ways I figured I’d add the non-committal “some other time.” My main objective was to get out of the house.
“Oh, I guess so,” said Dad. The disappointment in his tone was unmistakable. Thirty years later vis-à-vis my own sons, I’d fully appreciate Dad’s disappointment. Schubert was his favorite composer, and he so wanted to convey to me his own abiding love for the composer’s music. If only in that moment I could’ve advanced the time machine far enough for him to see that eventually his profound example would take root; that one day I would learn to appreciate the role that music can play in capturing the essence of human emotions and in expressing the greatest of earthbound beauty. Schubert’s Unfinished is one of my favorite symphonies.
Leaving Dad and Schubert behind, I joined Bobby on the front stoop. Seconds later we were racing bikes down to the beach. (Cont.)
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© 2024 by Eric Nilsson
