Month: October 2025

Last fall Mike and I travelled to San Antonio to attend a Sting and Billy Joel concert. We love Sting and thought that Billy Joel might be fun as well. As fate would have it, we literally spent hours in a massive traffic jam and did not reach our seats at the Alamodome until Sting’s last song. We consoled ourselves with the fact that we had seen him rather recently but we were still rather disappointed as we waited for Billy Joel during the intermission. 

The man who came out on the stage seemed like an imposter with his bald head and beard but as soon as he sat down at the piano and began to play we knew that he was the real deal. The show of familiar tunes and a few that we did not recognize turned out to be one of the best we had ever seen. Billy rocked us all night long and by the end of the program the lights from phones filled the arena as everyone sang along. We marveled that we had been treated to more than our money’s worth that evening.

What we did not know is much about Billy Joel’s life story until we saw that there was a two part documentary on HBO produced by Tom Hanks. It was there that we we began to realize the musical genius of this complex man more deeply. After almost four hours of viewing we were marveling even more than we had at the concert.

Billy is the son of musical parents. His father was a pianist and his mother was a singer. He was encouraged from an early age to play the piano but he soon tired of just reading notes and began to create songs from the music that played in his head. His talent moved him to play classical pieces in different genres like rock and roll and jazz. He knew from an early age that he had to make music and his mother supported his dreams as his biggest fan.

Billy’s father was from a once wealthy Jewish family that had lost their business in Germany during Hitler’s dominance. They were all sent to concentration camps including Billy’s dad during the time of Hitler’s reogn. All of the family members died with the exception of Billy’s father who emigrated to the United States after the war. There he met Billy’s mom while the two of them were playing and singing in a musical. They married and started a family but he was never very happy and abandoned them. Billy spent most of his life not knowing what had become of his dad.

Billy’s mom struggled to care for Billy and her sister. Her bipolar disorder sometimes stole away her energy and her love for the children but Billy was devoted to her in spite of her shortcomings. She was also a heavy drinker often quelling her anxieties with alcohol. Life was erratic but Billy clung to the fun times when his mother would sing along with him with so much joy. When he chose to join a band rather than continuing his education after high school, she encouraged him to find a way to showcase his talent. 

The early years of breaking into the business were fun but lean in terms of dependable income. Billy nonetheless knew in his heart that he had something big to offer the world. He bunked with a friend and the friend’s wife while the two men found gigs and built a bit of interest in their music. Along the way he fell in love with his friend’s wife who became his muse. Many of his early songs were inspired by her and eventually she divorced her husband and followed Billy wherever he went. 

Billy Joel’s songwriting style is to write lyrics about what he knows, so many of his songs are deeply personal. They tell stories of his love, his struggles and his everyman journey. Getting them to the public was gruelling but with dedication and hard work he eventually found a modicum of success only to learn that the man who had been managing his talent had absconded with most of the funds. He had to restart his career from the beginning. Since his mind was filled with one song after another the hits kept coming. 

Sadly Billy shared some of the demons that had plagued his mother and father, including depression and heavy drinking. Eventually his boughts with alcohol and drugs were too much for his wife to handle and so she left to protect her son. Ironically she still loved Billy and he loved her but their life together was over. 

Billy has had a series of wives including Christie Brinkley who was as taken with him as his first wife had been. By the time he met Christie he was in the middle of a successful stride and was experimenting with many different sounds and types of music. He even wrote a classical piece, or at least played it, and then asked a classical pianist to write down the notes for the music. It is incredibly lovely and at one time was at the top of the classical music charts beating artists like YoYo Ma. 

Billy continued an on again off again relationship with alcohol much like his mother had always done. It damaged his romantic relationships and sometimes even his friendships but ultimately the interesting thing about Billy Joel is that even the people that he hurt still love and adore him. They seem to understand the pitfalls of genius that haunted him over the years. 

At some point Billy learned that his father had returned to Europe after he left the family. He settled down in Austria and married again. Billy found that he had a brother and the two met each other and became fast friends. His brother is a conductor so the music gene seems to be an important aspect of being a Joel. 

Billy loves the people who have been in his life and they love him. He has children who seem to echo his talent and his penchant for loving deeply. Sadly he has recently had to cancel his tours for health problems. I certainly hope he knows how much those of us who are his fans love him. His music is timeless and has been a great gift to the world. If you get a chance watch the documentary or maybe just stream a few of his songs. He is a piano man extraordinaire. 

I’ve done a great deal of teaching and tutoring over the years and I am still at it. I specialize in mathematics because I see so many people who are terrified of numbers. I was never a favorite teacher because of the way I made the subject that I taught exciting but because I made it understandable. 

 I have often encountered students who have given up on themselves when it comes to math. They tell me stories of hating numbers and word problems from the time they were quite young. I have heard the refrain, “I’m just no good at this kind of thing” over and over again.” They seem to be defeated before they even try to overcome their fears and negative beliefs. 

One of the worst situations involved a young man who had not performed well on a fourth grade STARR test. His fifth grade teacher hastily scheduled a conference with his mother to warn the mom that the boy was not likely to pass the fifth grade test at the end of the year. The teacher explained that the best course of action would be to take him slowly though the curriculum and let him know that it would be okay when he failed the end of year exam. He would be able to repeat fifth grade and in the process gain the maturity he needed to ultimately succeed. 

The mom was stunned and got a referral for my services from her sister-in-law whose children I was homeschooling. When I heard the tale I immediately agreed to work with child all year long. I did not tell the mother how angry I was that anyone had been so brusque with her son as to conclude failure before he even had a chance to improve. 

I met the young man and could tell that his confidence was in tatters. He said that he wanted to be smart like his father who was a mechanical engineer but the boy had come to believe that he would never be that way. He was wary about answering questions lest he prove that he was indeed not so bright. He had accepted the idea that something was wrong with him.

I spent the next many meetings attempting to help him to understand that he was in fact quite intelligent. I turned the learning into sessions designed to demonstrate to him that he was not only capable of learning anything but actually someone who caught on to concepts very quickly. I insisted that he was teaching me things that I had not known. Slowly but surely he began to believe in himself once again. 

I’m happy to say the this child did indeed pass the STARR test at the end of the year with a Commended score. I kept tutoring him until he had completed Pre-Calculus in High School with all A’s and B’s. At our last session I asked him if he knew how smart he is and with a beaming smile he shook his head up and down with a rousing, “Yes!”

I suppose this story means much to me because I was also a Dean of Faculty charged with mentoring and guiding teachers. I was fortunate to work with the best of the best but I would have been quite disturbed if I had learned of a teacher who was actually setting students up for failure before they even had a chance to try to do better. Sadly I know that such individuals do exist and I can’t imagine why they would want to call themselves educators. 

My university called education a science rather than an art but I tend to believe that it is a bit of both. Without the art attempts at teaching are doomed. There are great teachers who go well beyond conveying the skills of a subject. They have perfected the art of inspiring students and helping them to realize potential that they may not have realized they have. Those are the teachers who are remembered forever. They tap into the human spirit in ways that bring out the very best in their pupils. They are the teachers who understand that many young people are sometimes reticent to even believe in their own capabilities. It is their job to show them how to realize the full potential of their lives.

We have all encountered such wonderful teachers and left their care with confidence that was missing before we met them. I think of the English teacher who taught me how to write, the art teacher who showed me the creativity that was always mine, the P.E. teacher who convinced me that I am not a hopeless klutz, the professor who inspired me to understand how to bring out the best in every student. 

I love teachers. Most of them are dedicated and delightful people. When we find those who are defeating our students before they even try, we might gently show them how to change their methods or, failing that, suggest other ways for them to earn a living. People like that are not educators. They are simply folks who are unhappy with their jobs. We do them and the students a favor by redirecting them to a career they might enjoy. Most teachers do so much more and in being so wonderful they enrich the world.

When I was young back in the sixties one of the local television stations used to air old back and white movies from the forties each afternoon. I was a hardworking student back then so it was nice to relax for a time watching those films before starting my homework which usually took until close to midnight to complete. I enjoyed whatever happened to be showing on any given day, but some of the most delightful offerings featured teenagers of the time dancing the jitterbug with pure delight. 

I suppose that I was particularly taken by such scenes because my mother would have been a teenager herself when those movies were premiering in the downtown Houston movie houses. She often spoke with delight about catching a bus at the end of her street and riding to town to watch her favorite actors and actresses on the big screen. She often boasted that she learned how to do the dances of the era from carefully watching the pros and then practicing the steps before showing her acumen in public. 

My mother was an incredible student of dance. It’s sometimes hard to believe that she never had any official instruction because she looked like a pro whenever she demonstrated her graceful moves. She was so light on her feet that it felt as though she was literally floating on a cloud of air just above the floor. 

Mama often recounted how she would walk many miles to a nearby park where dances were held at a pavilion on Friday nights. She was a real beauty back then likened to Hedy Lamarr according to her siblings. It never took long before some young man would ask her to dance and she was always ready to demonstrate her footwork abilities. Soon enought the best dancers were partnering with her and her sisters said that sometimes the crowd would circle around the couple clapping and cheering as they preformed their stunning moves just like in the movies. 

I loved hearing such stories. I saw my mother dancing in her forties and she was still as spry and lively as ever. I realized what a true talent she had. She always looked so happy as she showed us how to jitterbug and tap dance and waltz. She tried to teach me and my brothers but somehow we just did not have the same talent that she possessed. It would be my daughter who would gloriously emulate her grandmother with an incredible bent for dancing. 

Even as my mother grew older and heavier she stunned people when she took to the dance floor. There was something etherial about her gracefulness and the way in which she glided so smoothly. People were still in awe of her eighty something year old self as she stole the show at weddings and birthday celebrations. 

Mama’s last dance came at the wedding of my niece. My mother was dying of lung cancer but none of us realized it then. She was feeling weaker and weaker and yet she somehow found the energy to pull herself together. I remember that she looked particularly beautiful on that day. In fact, when she arrived at the wedding ceremony people gasped at her loveliness. Later that evening as she danced with one of her grandsons she was radiant. She would eventually tell me that she had felt weak and she worried that she might not make it through the song. She loved that her grandson kept a strong grip on her as though he understood that she needed his assistance to complete her final dance. 

It would be only weeks later that my mother died in the ICU of St. Luke’s Hospital. She was quite content with her fate as the family surrounded her. She smiled often and insisted that she was feeling no pain. Her life had been difficult but she had managed to maintain her optimism as she danced through it all.

Later my daughters and I would marvel at how beautiful her end had been. She was not afraid of what lie ahead. We talked about how much she liked to dance and my girls remembered times when my mother would turn on disco music and teach them how to perform the latest steps. They smiled at the memories of twirling around the room with their Grammy feeling as though they were stars and she was their teacher. 

I still can’t watch great dancers without thinking of my mother. She was a self taught force of nature who took life by the tail and ran all the way to the end. It was beautiful to see.