All It Takes Is A Little Love

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. 

My daughter’s children are grown and gone so her four bedroom home with a pool in the backyard suddenly seemed a bit too big for her and her husband. She had often dreamed of buying a townhome but never quite found one that suited her tastes. Nonetheless she kept looking because she had grown weary of keeping up a pool that nobody used anymore and all of those rooms that mostly sat empty. Then she stumbled upon townhomes that were not attached to one another, providing privacy while also creating the feel of “just enough” room for two people who will be heading into their senior years more quickly than any of us ever imagined. 

It is a beautifully crafted house in a tiny cul-de-sac arrangement with three other homes. The clever architecture allows for a large great room/ kitchen combination that looks out on a field of trees that grow on a plot of land too small for building so it will always be as lovely as it is today. It features a quite adequate master bedroom and two smaller rooms that will work well as guest rooms for when the kids come home or an office for my daughter. The best aspect of the place is found in the early morning and late afternoon views of sunrise and sunset. Each day nature’s gift seems to become more and more stunning in the quiet neighborhood tucked away from the world. 

My daughter had to carefully purge herself of excess furniture and belongings in order for the move to work. Suddenly she and those who helped her pack the essentials came to realize that over a lifetime we humans lucky enough to live a nice middle class life in the United States collect lots of things, much more than we ever need. Somehow at the time we think that we must have them but if forced to choose what is most important we realize the folly of many of our purchases. In truth we only require so much to live comfortably. 

Watching my daughter’s process of carefully choosing what she will take to the new house has given me an opportunity to rethink all of the many items that seem to take up every available space in my own home. Much of my excess centers around rescuing things from my mother-in-law and my mother when they died. Some of what I collected has great meaning and will stay with me until the day that I die or have to move to a smaller place in a retirement home. Items like a picture that hung over my mom’s sofa from the time that I was a child is a treasure. The vase that once belonged to my great grandmother will always travel with me until I find the daughter or grandchild who will understand its value as a family heirloom. The china and silver that my father purchased for Mama one piece at a time is proudly on display but much beyond that is really just stuff that I am more than willing to part with one day. 

When my father-in-law remarried I rescued so much that had belonged to my mother-in-law that my home is staining to contain it all. My daughter only recently remarked that I have too much furniture and it is true. I keep much of it with the idea that someone my want to take care of it one day but so far only a few pieces seem to attract any of the family members. There is a secretary that is the centerpiece of what I call my sitting room and an oak table that is well over one hundred years old. Some end tables might prove to be useful for someone one day but I’m not so sure about much of the rest, including multiple sets of china that I never use.

We collect this and that as our lives go by. Some of it is meaningful beyond measure and some would mean little if we hauled it away. My father-in-law’s attic is still filled from one end to the other with boxes and furniture that he has forgotten that he has. The job of cleaning it out when he is gone will be daunting and according to all of the stories that I hear few young people want the old things and many antique stores are having trouble selling some items that were once desired. Somehow we humans, especially in America, generally have homes and plots of land large enough to store things away. We get more and more and more but use only a small percent of it. When we are gone our descendants don’t know quite what to do with it all. 

Sadly life is not filled with more than can ever be used for most people. While we are busy accumulating there are still people on this earth who are dying from hunger and want. If we were to whittle down our own needs and then set aside regular contributions to charitable causes our lives would be so much more meaningful. 

Perhaps my daughter has stumbled upon the right idea. She was happy to sell her home to a young couple with children. They were overjoyed to be able to purchase a home with a pool and so many rooms. They plan to raise their family in a neighborhood with excellent schools. it seems like a wonderful way for an older generation to provide for a younger one. 

An additional joy that was prompted by my daughter’s decision to keep only what she really needs or treasures came when she had to do something with the piano that has sat in her home unused for decades now. It had been given to her by her grandmother when she was only a child and she never quite took to learning how to play. Nonetheless she moved it from town to town, place to place where it sat like a relic, never making a sound. Because it would never have fit in the townhome she had to do something so she offered it for free online. A woman with two children who were learning to play with only a keyboard quickly asked to be rewarded the gift. When the lady came with her youngsters they sat on the bench and played the loveliest melodies that had come from the piano in years. The woman literally cried with joy at the realization that her budding pianists would have a wonderful instrument to refine their talent. My daughter cried with the joy of knowing that the piano would be loved. Everyone was happy

Giving all of that excess baggage away now rather than letting it turn to dust in attics and closets seems like an excellent idea. Even better is that my daughter will not leave her children with the enormous task of knowing what to do with all that she has left behind when her time on this earth arrives. We might all do well to consider what we really need and scale down now. We can donate it or have a gigantic garage sale or just give special pieces to those that we love. However we do it will make so much more sense than hoarding it until it becomes a nuisance rather than something that may bring great happiness to someone right now. It seems like a grand thing to do.   

Do your little bit of good where you are. It’s those little bits of good put together that overwhelm the world. — Desmond Tutu

When I think back on my life I recall moments when it seemed as if the whole world was busy doing little bits of good. One of those times was in the immediate aftermath of the destruction of the Twin Towers in New York City. There was certainly a kind of nationwide sorrow and grieving in the United States, but at the same time people from everywhere made kind gestures to express their support. There were school children who wrote letters to the people of the city of New York and to the families who lost loved ones. Folks came from far and wide to help with the cleanup. Donations poured in. On the local front citizens of towns and neighborhoods pitched in the help each other. I often remember how my neighbors helped me clear debris from trees that fell down without even being asked. They saw me lugging bundles of sticks to the curb and silently joined in until the work was done. They asked for nothing in return but of course I understood my moral duty to be ready to do good for them.

The same kind of thing happened when Hurricane Harvey ravaged the city of Houston with historic floods. The Cajun Navy came with rescue boats. People used their fishing craft to bring people out of inundated neighborhoods. Food, water, and  household necessities arrived by the truckload. A group of celebrities from Los Angeles even held a telethon. When it came time to clean out the mud and muck that laid ruin to homes, complete strangers came in droves to work in ninety degree heat taking down soggy sheetrock and water soaked carpet. Schools received bundles of supplies to replace the once that were ruined in the rising water. It felt as though our city would make it back to normal with all of the love showered on us.

For a time the whole world rallied around the medical communities guiding us through the Covid 19 pandemic. Parades of cars drove through medical centers with signs signifying gratitude for the doctors and nurses. People rose to the occasion with videos of dancing and singing and music that lifted our spirits. Individuals delivered food to those who had to stay home. In most cases people wore their masks without too much complaint. It was wonderful while it lasted but it did not always stay that way. Once the virus was politicized a yawning gap opened up between people that has only grown wider and uglier over time.

I love it whenever people set aside their differences and come together for anyone who needs help. I revel in the idea of simply doing the right thing at the right time without judgement or irritation. We are at our best as people when we don’t take notice of race, religion, culture or sexual preferences in offering our little bits of good. We have more often than not understood that there are times when we must offer our time, our talents and our treasure to help those in need no matter who they are or where they may be. Such generosity has been a hallmark of my city and state and country for all of my life but somehow now I hear too many grinching that we should only have to take care of our own. Some seem to believe that it is not up to us to be the saviors of the entire world. They claim that we have enough to do in our own backyards and need not be concerned with the difficulties of strangers. 

I still believe that people are mostly good and that they will help those in need without questions. I live on a wonderful cul-de-sac in which we celebrate each other regularly. I know nothing about the political views of my neighbors but I do know that when a hurricane came through last summer we helped each other. I know that we check on each other, do little bits of good for each other. We have a blast on Halloween night handing out candy to kids who seem to come to our street from everywhere. We make cookies and goodies for each other at Christmastime. We don’t discuss our religious beliefs or worry about the color of each other’s skin or sexual preferences. We live in blissful harmony the way it should always be. 

I have grown weary of the constant bickering that is stirred up by our president. I dislike the idea of choosing one political power or way of thinking over another. This nation was built oncompromise. George Washington did not even want political parties. He feared what the concept might do to the freedoms of whichever group was not voted into office. He did not believe in the idea of pushing through legislation that did not consider all of the people. He hoped for a president who would be humble and wise and be open to differing ideas. He was adamant about  keeping clear divisions between the legislature, the Supreme Court and the executive branch. He envisioned a nation of people working for the common good of all citizens in pursuit of the ideals of the democratic republic. Such a government is dependent on little bits of good here and there coming together to make a difference in the world. 

I hope that we will get over our tendency as a voting public to elect people who are so one sided that they take delight in crushing those who do not walk in tandem with him. I long for a leader who will daily demonstrate a dedication to being good to everyone. We’ve had that before. Perhaps we will get sick enough of the chaos that is exhausting us and become a nation of generosity for everyone once again.