Author: Lelia Loban ★2017
Date: 2008-12-14 18:42
To the ends of their lives, my mother and her sister fondly recalled a music teacher in then-rural Harrah, Oklahoma, in the midst of the dustbowl and the Great Depression, who gave those girls music lessons in return for produce, eggs and chicken from their parents' farm. That barter deal worked out well for everyone. The farm family had no money, but because my Czech grandfather had refused to adopt "modern" farming techniques, his farm hadn't turned to a dustbowl and he grew prize-winning crops. The teacher needed the food because so many of her students had had to quit.
Mom's sister went on to become a professional musician (opera singer, then career counsellor at Juilliard, then Executive Secretary of the Metropolitan Opera's National Council). Mom, after singing on the radio and teaching high school music for a few years, went on to use her music training as an Occupational Therapist at an Army hospital during World War II. They both stayed in touch with that beloved teacher from their childhood until she died of old age.
Times have changed, I guess. Though the last barter deal I heard rumors about involved a farm product of sorts, it grew under fluorescent lights in a basement. I'm pretty sure the IRS never got so such as a stray seed out of that deal.
Lelia
http://www.scoreexchange.com/profiles/Lelia_Loban
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The Clarinet BBoard
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