Music, Muses and Magic

Music, Muses and Mason City, Iowa



The spirit of the time I was born in was one of kaleidoscopic changes. Music from 1949 like, “Good Night Irene”, “So Long,It’s Been Good to Know You” and “ If I Knew You Was Comin’ I’d Baked a Cake”; pure in content and intent watered the seeds that grew into the variety of music that guided my life.
Leaving computers and cell phones that can do everything but change a diaper -- behind, I recall slide shows, or even those viewers you hold up to your eyes with pictures on a wheel that moved as you pulled down a lever.
Mentally, I have a slide show of ‘my youth in Iowa’. The slides depict special buildings like the places I lived, the school I went to, the church, the farms, the library made famous in The Music Man and many outdoor scenes. There are a few teachers, and a few friends. There are the Christmas decorations, glowing on the street poles in spite of an evening snowstorm, and the owl that attached itself to the screen of our second floor apartment window.
. The parades every first Sunday in June went beyond slide show to a memory movie. Our town had band festivals with marching bands from all over Iowa and parts of Minnesota, Illinois. Anticipation burst asunder when the whistle of the first drum major blew. The sounds of brass instruments and bass and snare drums, horses whinnying and clopping, children squealing, and adults clapping and greeting long lost friends were parts of those parades.
The library, silent, however, acoustically endowed with an echo in the children’s room. Thousands of books, and other printed matter called for the attention of readers. Odors of papers and glues, decades of dust and wax greeted every nose. From every corner, counter and shelf, they tugged at your senses as soon as you walked in the door.
Smells in the library competed with the Cinemascopic view outside. The windows in the reading rooms for children and the one for adults were two stories high of clear, unobstructed pane glass. The nature walk that followed along the river next to the library provided an ever-changing view. The seasons were on display at all times out of those windows.
From the first green, Q-tip- sized buds on the century old trees, pussy willows, and wild roses in spring that lead to lilacs, and violets, and lily of the valley. Summer was in full dress with vines and bushes of unknown varieties sheltering the stone pathway to the river.
Of course, fall presented an explosion of color through that kaleidoscopic canvas, because the trees grew beyond the frame of the windows from top to bottom and past the edges. Representing the sky were miniature triangles of blue; an afterthought to the reds, oranges, and yellow and browns filling the towering windows. Colors like those inspired children like me to try to capture the fleeting glories on sheets of paper. We used finger-paints, crayons, watercolor or tempera paints trying to express the excitement those colors meant to us.
The quiet gray of winter sky blanketed the world. Snow covered all man and nature’s creations. Icy air was cracked by the staccato speech of crows and ravens, hopping along the unyielding riverbank.
When the sun appeared, it fought losing battles with bone-chilling winds and ever-present, waiting in the wings, gray amorphous beasts that roamed the sky, killing all warmth through massive passive resistance.
By persistence and the power of patience, the sun finally won those battles and drew the earth closer melting ice and snow and waking all sleeping life forms. When we looked out of the library windows on the world of nature, the lessons were presented in rhythmic, glorious and inspiring patterns.
Those patterns were imprinted on my young mind and spirit.
Now that I am a senior citizen and live in a desert, I travel widely to seek out classic signs of season change. Taking photographs, some that can be printed, and some just stay in my heart.