Tom Learns about Knives and Orchestra Teachers

Tom played the violin in school for seven years, sixth through twelfth grade. During that time, he had four different Orchestra teachers. His first was a twenty-something year old, short man, of Swiss descent teaching at a sixth grade center. The second Orchestra teacher was a young woman of Irish descent who taught seventh grade.

His third was an old man of Scottish descent who taught Tom in eighth and ninth grade before retiring, named Mr. Abbotson. And the fourth was a forty-something year old African American who took over from Mr. Abbotson, named Mr. Wirrin. The best of the four was Mr. Abbotson who looked liked a composer or conductor of old. He always wore a bow tie and a Hanna hat when outside to cover his bald head. The worst teacher was the jazz playing bassist Mr. Wirrin, who could play a mean bass but couldn't teach worth a darn. These last two are worth discussing in more detail.

The old Scott played the piano and cello expertly, but learned proficiency on all of the instruments. When the eighth grade Orchestra students went on a bus trip to Disneyland, Mr. Abbotson made sure that the trip was full of music. He had them perform at a junior high along the way and then again in Disneyland’s orchestral studio, playing a sound track for an animated movie. He had them all go see The Phantom of the Opera in the evening.

At night, when all of the students were supposed to sleep in their shared hotel rooms, the old man sat in a lawn chair in the parking lot, and stared up at all the rooms to let the kids know he was watching and they had better behave. He was probably asleep, but to Tom and the others, his presence outside meant they would be caught if they attempted leaving their rooms. Tom thought it was a little creepy seeing Mr. Abbotson in his bow tie, hat, and glasses--unmoving, like a vampire waiting for activity upon which to pounce.

Mr. Abbotson would sometimes tell stories in class, but he would make sure that most of the time was spent playing music. One story he told involved the progress on his home he had bought and all of the governmental problems he was running into to get certain additions and landscaping approved by Clark County. Tom had no idea that Mr. Abbotson was talking about a home around the corner from where Tom lived, until sometime later when he saw his aged teacher taking a routine walk around the hood.

When Abbotson retired from the Clark County School District after many decades of teaching, he held private lessons in his home and Tom would go every week to improve his violin skills. Mr. Abbotson had installed a grand piano in his living room and would sometimes invite neighbors over to perform for them. A couple years after Tom graduated high school, Mr. Abbotson decided to move to another State to be close to his grandchildren. Tom, a real estate major in college, purchased the home from his old high school teacher and private violin tutor. Years later, Tom visited the old man. He was still giving private lessons and he gave daily performances on a grand piano in Nordstrom’s.

Mr. Wirrin, on the other hand, was a completely different teacher. Tom had this Orchestra teacher for three years, the longest of all four. Looking back, Tom thinks he wasted a lot of time taking Orchestra those last three years. Mr. Wirrin spent most of the class hour every day complaining about how the students did not practice enough at home. He said that they would not get a superior rating at the yearly inter-school competition if they did not. He told the students that if they did not take Orchestra seriously, the program would be in jeopardy because sports was considered by school officials to be more important to fund than music programs.

Tom would often wonder why the class time was wasted. The students could have been practicing instead of listening to Mr. Wirrin, who seemed to like to hear himself speak even though his communication skills were severely lacking. Wirrin would pepper his monologues with “ums” and “uhs.” At concerts, when he introduced a piece the orchestra would play, he sounded very nervous and the “ums” and “uhs” only increased in incidence. Tom would cringe in discomfort as he considered what the audience must think.

When Mr. Wirrin took the students on bus trips to Magic Mountain, or other parks in California, as was the yearly tradition, he took no extra effort to make the trips memorable. There were no stops along the way to play with other schools. The only stops were in Barstow for lunch and several stops so the chaperons and bus driver could smoke. Instruments were left at home. At night, Wirrin slept in his own room and wore sound-canceling headphones so he would not be disturbed.

On one of the trips to California, when Tom was eighteen and a senior, Tom carried his Swiss army knife, an heirloom bespeaking his Swiss ancestry. On the bus, one of the other students was having difficulty opening a package of junk food and Tom assisted with his pocketknife. A chaperoning parent, upon sight of the knife, acted hysterically and pointed it out to Wirrin, who confiscated it.

“I’m surprised that you would break the rules,” he scolded Tom. “I could keep you from going into the park tomorrow for bringing this knife.”

“But I am an adult, outside of school, on a weekend. We are not even taking a school bus,” Tom explained, “What’s wrong with me bringing a tool with me? We use knives all the time to eat. Students were using butter knives and steak knives at lunch in Barstow.”

“That’s different,” Wirrin said, without explaining why. “I’m going to have a word with your father when we get back. This is a very serious thing you did. I thought you had more sense and were more responsible than this. You know the younger students see you as an example.”

If he had not lost respect for Mr. Wirrin in the two and a half years prior, Tom had now lost every vestige of it. Tom considered dropping out of Orchestra for the remainder of the year and taking another class instead. Other students had done it, but Tom ultimately wanted to see things through, even if it was uncomfortable.

That night in his hotel room, Mr. Wirrin wore his noise-canceling headphones, which he had bragged about to some of the parents on the bus. He was oblivious to the shenanigans going on throughout the hotel by high school students. A hotel window was broken. Students that wanted to sleep were harassed by those that did not. The hotel was alive with teenagers most of the night. Boys were going to girls' rooms; girls were going to boys'.

Tom thought that he could have saved the money on his hotel room and slept better in a lawn chair. His roommates were not letting him sleep as they called other students on the hotel phones, called each other names involving homosexuality because four were supposed to share two beds, etc. Tom almost hit one of the squirly boys in the face to get him to shut his obnoxious hole, but thought better of it and sat out the night in a chair.

Upon returning to Las Vegas, Mr. Wirrin sought out Tom’s father’s car and strode over to the driver’s side. Tom’s former Marine father, Noland, looked sternly out of his window at Mr. Wirrin as Tom put his luggage in the trunk.

“Your son did a very dangerous thing which is against the school rules. He was caught with a knife on the bus. I have it here and wanted to give it to you personally. Tom is going to graduate soon, so I will not raise this with the dean. You better make sure he does not bring it to school.”

To Mr. Wirrin's chagrin, Nol handed the knife to Tom.

On the ride home, Nol looked over at his son and grinned. “It’s a good thing he didn’t know about this,” Nol pulled out and showed the handgun that he had concealed illegally in his palm beside his seat for protection.

The neighborhood around the school was getting worse and worse, after all.