^{The News}
Dedicated to Austrian-Hungarian Burgenland Family History

6) BEDTIME STORIES FOR CHILDREN

a) THE SOUNDS OF MUSIC? (an excerpt from "Eden Was On a Hollywood Hill," copyright Earl Barret, used by permission)

     Mary and Nelson watched from the living room while Earl helped Professor Schreiver to remove his overcoat in the hall. The Professor hung his hat on a hook but didn't part with his muffler. He was perhaps 75, tall, elegant, had a head of fluffy white hair and a large mustache. He carried a violin case that still had some snowflakes on it.
     He took Mary's hand and kissed it.
     “Goot afternoon, Mrs. Trombitas. It is very nice to see you once more again.” Then he turned to Nelson. “And you must be Nelzone.”
     “No, I'm Nelson.”
     “Ya, that is what I said. 'Nelzone'. That is a goot name for a violinist. What grade is you in, Nelzone?”
     “He started the 1st grade in September,” Mary interjected.
     “Please, Mrs. Trombitas, let Nelzone talk for himself. I want to hear the music in his voice,” Professor Schreiver corrected kindly. “What grade, Nelzone?”
     “1st.”
     “Hokie-dokie,” Professor Schreiver said. “Please show to me your violin.”
     Before Nelson could move, Earl rushed out of the living room and returned with the violin in its black case and handed it to the Professor who opened it and began to shake his head.
     “Nien, nien, nien. This will never do.”
     He removed the violin from the case and inspected it very carefully.
     “What's wrong wit' it, Professor?” Earl asked defensively. “I paid a lot of money for 'dat violin. 'De guy who sold it to me said 'dat it was a good one.”
     “Ya, ya, it is an excellent instrument, but not for Nelzone. Nien. It is too big for him. He won't be ready for this one for 2 or 3 years,” the Professor explained. “What we need here is a child's violin.”
     “Professor Schreiver, I'm afraid we don't have any money to buy a child's violin.”
     “That's okay, Mommy,” Nelson said cheerfully, “I don't mind waiting 2 or 3 years.”
     “You shuddup,” Earl said.
     “Buying is not the only solution, Mrs. Trombitas,” the Professor said. “Sometimes when the case is special, I have a child's violin that I rent for 5 cents a veek.”
     “What makes a case special?” Mary asked.
     “Nelzone, do you like the sound the violin makes?” Professor Schreiver said.
     “I don't know. I never heard anybody play one, except Jack Benny on the radio.”
     “He is an honest boy. That is a goot sign.”
     The Professor removed the violin from its case again and began to carefully tune it. Then he adjusted the bow to his liking. Mary recalled later that a rather remarkable transformation happened as he did this, the years almost seemed to leave his face and his body.
     “You are Romanian, Mr. Trombitas?” Professor Schreiver asked.
     “'Dat's right,” Earl said proudly.
     “So, I play for you something Romanian.”
     He then launched into a performance of 'Hora Staccato' that left Mary and Earl amazed as his fingers flew and up and down the fingerboard and the bow slashed across the strings. When he finished, Nelson clapped his hands with glee.
     “That was wonderful, Professor,” Mary said, finally.
     “Nien, nien, it was not so very hotsie-totsie, Mrs. Trombitas. The hands are old now and the fingers a little stiff.”
     “Please rent me a child's violin, Daddy,” Nelson said. “I want to learn to play my violin the way the Professor does!”
     “Do you think that would ever be possible, Professor,” Mary wondered.
     “I wouldn't make a lie to you, madam. We know the music is in the violin, whether it is also in Nelzone only God knows.”
     After that day Mary and Earl never treated Professor Schreiver the same way. He moved up in their world from being a violin teacher with a good reputation to a man of culture, a man worthy of respect. He was an artist.
     Mary and Earl rented the child's violin for Nelson for a year and a half before Professor Schreiver hinted that the day might be near when the big violin would be coming into use. During all of this time the Professor spent part of each lesson beseeching, “Nelzone, don't shoot holes in the carpet!” which meant that Nelson shouldn't point the scroll of the violin at the floor. When Nelson had an especially good lesson, Professor Schreiver would reward him with some Sen-Sen licorice candy flakes, which he was addicted to so that his breath wouldn't give offense to his pupils or their parents.
     Everybody loved the sound of the big violin and Professor Schreiver introduced Nelson to some new friends: Mozart, Brahms, Wagner, Mendelssohn, Beethoven, all in very easy versions, of course. Nelson loved to play, but he hated to practice. When Nelson would make a mistake, the Professor would say, “Nien, nien, Nelzone, don't compose! Herr Mozart don't need no help - don't add no notes! Only play the ones he wrote!”
     Everybody in the house hated to hear him practice except Earl. No matter how terrible Nelson sounded, just the sight of his son playing the violin pleased him. He would slip off his shoes, settle back on the sofa, and no patron in a box at Carnegie Hall listening to Fritz Kreisler could have enjoyed himself more. (Fritz Kreisler was Earl's other favorite.)
     Eventually, Nelson started taking the bus downtown by himself on Saturdays to take his tap and violin lessons. His routine was always the same. Tap lesson in the morning, hot dog and orange drink at Woolworth's counter with the farmers for lunch, and violin lesson in the afternoon. Secretly he and Professor Schreiver were working on two projects. One Nelson was very excited about. He was learning to play “Hora Staccato” as a surprise for his Daddy. The second, Professor Schreiver was very excited about.
     “Nelzone, you're going to play the violin on the radio!”
     Mary and Earl and Johnny, Lucy, Helen and Professor Schreiver were all seated in the living room when Nelson played “Hora Staccato” without missing a single note. He didn't play it as well or as fast as the Professor had, but it was good. Everybody applauded and Earl's eyes misted up.
     “Well done, Nelzone, well done,” the Professor said. “And two weeks from next Sunday, if you turn on your radio, you will hear Nelzone, accompanied by me on the piano, play the Mendelssohn Concerto in E.”
     Everybody was amazed. They all knew that Canton had a radio station with an amateur show like Major Bowes, but they couldn't quite grasp the idea that Nelson and Professor Schreiver were going to be on it together. As it turned out, they weren't.
     “I don't know how I'm going to tell him, Earl.”
     “Don't worry about it, Mary. I'll do it.”
     When Nelson came in from playing that evening, Earl took him into the living room and sat him down on his lap.
     “Nels, Professor Schreiver ain't gonna be givin' you no more violin lessons.”
     “Why not, Daddy?” Nelson asked in alarm. “Did I do something wrong?”
     “No, no, you didn't do not'in wrong, 'de Professor did,” Earl said reassuringly. “He stepped off a curb without lookin' and he got killed by a truck. 'Dey said he never let go of 'de child's violin case he was holdin'.”
     Nelson laid his head on Earl's chest and neither of them moved until Mary called them for supper.
Mary and Earl were surprised when Nelson insisted he wanted to go to Professor Schreiver's funeral. They didn't realize how much 'Nelzone' loved the old man until they saw the tears stream down his face as the dirt was thrown on his casket. Many of the Professor's other pupils were there too, and some of them were also weeping.
     Two of his granddaughters played a duet of “Ave Maria.” They were both sobbing.