Six Lessons from My Father’s 100th Birthday Party

I just returned from my father’s 100^th birthday celebration at the Sheraton Universal City.  In 1914 Dad was born into a working class family near New York City.  When he was in high school the Great Depression hit, so he learned to play the French Horn, practicing more than three hours a day, to escape from poverty and earn a decent living.

In a recent video interview with Dad, my son Craig noted that Dad is one of the best brass instrument teachers in the world.  (His book, Essentials of Brass Playing, was published in 1982 and is still sold on Amazon.)

“No!” said Dad.  “I am the best.” 

Very few of my father’s hundreds, or thousands, of students over the past seventy years would dispute that claim.  When the Fred Fox University of Arizona Graduate Wind Quintet rehearsed at his home yesterday I asked Dad if he would please not take over the rehearsal.

“Certainly,” he said.

I arrived forty minutes after they began.  My father, from his chair, had taken over the rehearsal.

“They were all asleep,” he said.  “Now they’re awake.  They’re playing well.” 

Dad always recommends, in no uncertain terms, that everyone pay attention and perform at his or her best all of the time, to squeeze the most out of life.  I suspect that these five outstanding young musicians will tell their tale of yesterday’s lesson with Fred Fox to their friends and students fifty years from now.

One student from 1952 spoke at the party and said, “I had one lesson with Fred.  It changed my life.” 

Another student, who is still enjoying a long and successful career, flew in all the way from New Zealand to attend the party and participate in a short concert for Dad.

A third student, who retired twenty-three years ago after playing with a major symphony orchestra “took his lips out of mothballs” to perform today.

I always look for lessons in each experience, to improve my own life and to share with others. Lessons from today?

1. Keep your mind active.  Each time I visit Dad he is happy to impart his views on everything.  After the party ended I overheard Dad giving a short French Horn lesson to one of the guests.
2. Do your very best.  Always.  In my family this notion is seldom mentioned, just assumed.
3. Keep moving forward.  Dad told me a few years ago that he had figured out a new French Horn technique by listening to a CD of an Austrian French Horn player.  “I wish I had known that when I was playing,” he said.
4. Tame your negative emotions.  On Saturday Dad drove for an hour and a half to find a hotel to see his ninety-six year old sister.  The hotel was difficult to find, so he returned home—as fresh and happy as when he started.
5. Be Feisty.  When he was ninety-five Dad underwent open heart surgery.  He was out of intensive care three or four days before the average sixty-year-old.  At the heart rehab facility one week later, compelled to use a walker, Dad strolled the corridors holding the walker high above his head. They sent him home early.
6. It pays to have good genes.  I asked my dad to mark March 5, 2040 on his calendar because I expected him to attend my own 100^th birthday on that date.

My personal philosophy, which permeates everything I write, is this:  We only have today.  It’s up to each of us to make the most of it.

Thanks, Dad.

Alan