“You Will Learn to Play Piano”

Those words echo in my ears years after my mother uttered them. I think it was after another day spent in my room after a playground fight. I was nine or ten. At the time I hated the idea of piano lessons and questioned why a child should suffer such torture. Now I enjoy the piano and play for relaxation, and I understand Mom’s insistence. She had a problem—me. Bored and uninvolved at school, I was becoming a troublemaker. Mom must have been envisioning my future prison career. “You will Learn to Play Piano” sure kept me from boredom and probably out of trouble. Playing piano paid for part of my college, and even gained me job offers. All in all, I guess Mom was right.