Isley column: Life comes full circle, trombone still in hand

Sunday, April 12, 2009 3:06 AM  |  Printer friendly version | E-mail to a friend |

Editor's note: This column by Charlie Isley is reprinted from the Fall 2008 edition of the "Cooleemee History Loom" newsletter. Isley lives in Boone.

COOLEEMEE — The year was 1933. I was 13 years old, and the Great Depression was well under way.

My dad worked long hard shifts in the Erwin Cotton Mill here in Cooleemee, earning $20 per week as an overseer.

One day he went to Campbell's Pawn Shop in Winston-Salem and paid $20 (a full week's pay, mind you) for a secondhand trombone. He gave it to me, and I'm sure I didn't fully appreciate the sacrifice he had made nor the effect this would have on my life.

It was the first step in a lifelong career.

Lacy Riddle, a nearby neighbor, played trombone in the Cooleemee Concert Band. He showed me how to put the bell and slide sections together, put the mouthpiece on, hold the instrument as I played, pucker up and make my first feeble sounds.

Floyd Nail was the concert band leader. He played cornet, holding the instrument in one hand while conducting with the other.Soon I was sitting with the band, playing at the bottom of the trombone section. My career was shaping up.

We performed summer concerts on a bandstand at nearby Park Hill and made an annual trip 7 miles away to play for the Mocksville Picnic, afterwards moving quickly to the long tables filled with all kinds of food.

Three years later, I enrolled as a freshman at Davidson College. The trombone was my ticket into the band. Soon I was playing at football games, participating in football halftime shows and marching at ROTC ceremonies.The band director, James Christian Pfohl, introduced me to a wider world of music in the Davidson College Wind Ensemble. I decided to major in music education. Regular college courses were extremely difficult for me, but playing my trombone was always a delight.

The Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor and World War II began. I ended up in the United States Marine Corps, playing a brand new U.S. Quartermaster Corps trombone in the Quantico Marine Band.

I recall often marching at a very slow pace ahead of a hearse bearing the body of a Marine, playing Chopin's "Funeral March." As we reached the exit gate, we turned and faced the casket and the drum major gave a final salute as the hearse continued on to the National Cemetery. Then, as we headed back toward the barracks, we would march at a lively pace playing "When the Saints Go Marching In."

After the war, my professional career began in earnest. For most of my life, I hardly touched a trombone. I had long ago traded in the instrument my dad bought, buying a newer shinier model, which I later gave to a student who couldn't afford one.

But oftentimes, when a melody passed through my mind, my imaginary slide instinctively went through the motions as if I had the instrument in my hand.

I retired after a long, successful career in teaching, then conducted the Watauga Community Band for another 20 years, until, at the age of 87, I no longer felt safe on the podium.

I stepped down as conductor, and guess what?

I moved right back into the bottom of the trombone section, playing on an instrument a former student is lending me.

At our May concert, I got the surprise of my life. The band had secretly raised enough money to endow a generous, permanent music scholarship in my name. What a wonderful honor!

Now I'm sitting here holding my borrowed trombone, getting ready for summer concerts.

My life has gone full circle.

What a beautiful life I have had! I think of dad and the sacrifice he made. Did I ever thank him? I don't remember. Someday I'll ask him, and I'll say something a lot of people were not comfortable saying back then:

"Dad, I love you."