Klarinet Archive - Posting 001430.txt from 1998/03

From: "Edwin V. Lacy" <el2@-----.edu>
Subj: Re: Looking for a Pan-American clarinet
Date: Tue, 31 Mar 1998 01:18:24 -0500

On Mon, 30 Mar 1998, Dee Hays wrote:

> I have an old Pan American but it appears to be wood and is probably
> older than the 1940s.

On this list, people have described several kinds of Pan-American
clarinets: Ebonite plastic, wood or wood laminate, and wood-grain plastic
laminate. It is the Ebonite I would like to locate.

> Just curious, why are you trying to track down a 1940s student clarinet?
> Is there an intriguing story here?

Not that intriguing a story, I'm afraid. We are currently in the process
of setting up our calendar of performances for 1998-99, and I realized
that February 15, 1999 will be the 50th anniversary of the day I got my
Pan American clarinet and made my formal start in music. I'm going to
have some kind of a major party here, and I thought it would be
interesting to see if I could locate an instrument like the one I began
on. When I was a poor starving college student, I sold mine to a friend
for $15. He later gave it to one of his students in return for some kind
of manual labor, and I have now lost track of it.

As you can see, February 15, 1949 was one of the major events in my life,
and I still remember it as though it were yesterday. As Paul Harvey would
say, "Now you know the rest of the story."

Ed Lacy
el2@-----.edu