Happy Baritone Day

Ok, so I don't usually blog during a Steeler game, but those weird uniforms are buggin me out.

So for the last week or so, I've been trying to get in touch with a woman who lends instruments to students and schools. A music teacher at another school gave me her name and information. I contacted her because I have a new ninth grade student who plays the bartione horn but doesn't have his own instrument. (He played the school's instrument at his previous school.) As a music teacher with a small band, I will do just about anything to get more low brass!

So I played phone tag with this woman for most of last week. Apparently I was calling her husband's business line and she wasn't getting the full messages.

Eventually we connected and made an appointment for 1:00 today. So this afternoon I found my way down to Canonsburg, and her house was about 3 miles off I-79. It wasn't really to hard to find, although I was winding down country roads for those 3 miles. I saw a sign that said "Dangerous Intersection," so I slowed down. I came to what might be considered an intersection... two country roads intersecting. But dangerous? Hardly. It made me laugh.

When I got there, she was working on several baritones out of the back of her minivan. She was quite an eccentric older woman who apologized for not having a chance to clean the baritones because she was too busy putting shoe polish on the outside of the one baritone case... what? Through the course of our half hour together she told me the story of how she ended up lending instruments. Apparently this woman's husband is a millionaire. She has a passion for music, kids and education, and shopping in second hand stores and on ebay. Somehow these passions came together, and now she has a storage unit full of instruments that she will lend to just about any committed student or band program for absolutely free. Amazing!

The music teacher that gave this woman's name to me said she has witnessed to this instrument-lending woman, and that she's not a Christian and doesn't intend to become one. But I couldn't help but think how God blessed me, my student, and Eden Christian Academy today... all through someone who doesn't believe in Him.

As a little aside, when I got home, I got to clean the baritones out and grease up the slides, lube the valves, etc. Of course I had to play them a little (the veggie tales song is pretty fun...) and see if Isaiah could make decent sound. And he did! It was the funniest thing I've seen in a long time, just to see this little person making such a big sound on a big instrument! Dan did take a video and, if my laptop's memory wasn't completely full, I could download it and post it here. If Sam had been awake, I would have had him try it too. All you really have to do is make rasberries into the mouthpiece and some sound will come out. Sam would probably be an expert!