Long Term Memories
Sunday, January 04, 2009
My Grandfather Got Kicked Off the Team
I was watching TV the other day. It was a Law and Order episode involving a violin and a fraternity murder.
I remembered something about my Grandfather George. It was in the 1960s (I don't remember the year) and my Grandfather was in his late 70s or early 80s.
My Grandfather was in a string quartet that played for fun. One of the people in the quartet, the first string violinist was a person named Shulman (my father was the violist and a guy named Nussbaum was the cellist). He told my grandfather that his (my grandfather's) playing wasn't good enough and they would be getting another 2nd violinist. My grandfather was hurt emotionally by this; how much I don't know. My mother said she though my father should have quit the string quartet in sympathy (although to be truthful, mom was close to tonedeaf and my grandfather was having trouble with some of the music). I began to lose my interest in playing cello about this time - although I fooled around a bit - even played some in college and composed some music for our wedding.
My Mom Used to Do This I Think
At the end of the growing season, I took some branches of my New England Aster plant that was so successful and had them in water. I think Mom did this (not with an Aster plant).
However, of the many branches, about 70% were dying so I transplanted the living ones to dirt. With luck I should have a half dozen or so healthy transplants in a few month but who knows.
Now that I think of it, I'm not entirely sure how successful mom was with this. She may have only used the asexual reproduction trick on house plants. The image comes from a hydroponics website. Apparently they use pebbles to hold the plants upright. Mom never, as best as I can remember, did that.
