From Logan to Denver

In 1985, I was studying in Boston at Berklee College of Music. My major was composition and arranging, and I concentrated on playing the piano. However, I already had a Bachelor’s degree from Utah State, and some of my classes at Berklee were becoming a disappointment. Mom and Dad were paying tuition, though I was paying my rent and board. Still, after three semesters at the school I wasn’t happy. Mind you, I really loved most of my teachers. They were expert musicians, and I loved listening to them and watching them play. I appreciated the skill with which they demonstrated sight singing and improvising, and I worked hard to learn how to identify any note and any chord at any time. My roommates and I would take songs from commercials or TV show themes and try to solfege them. Our favorite was Jeopardy:

sol do sol do sol do sol

sol do sol do mi re do ti la le

sol do sol do sol do sol

do la sol fa mi re do

But I had problems with other students at the school. In one theory and arranging class, the teacher Mr Stevens was incredible in his ability to relate the music of John Lennon, Hall and Oates, and Stevie Wonder to jazz theory. The class was every day for one hour at 9:00. Often, only two or three of us would be on time even though ten to twelve students would be registered. By 9:30, though, some students wandered into class, often half dressed in a pair of sweats. Normally, I wouldn’t mind what they wore; they could come naked for all I cared. But I could see that they didn’t care, primarily by how bloodshot their eyes were and how coked up they seemed to be. Often they would ask questions that either I or the other two people had already asked Mr Stevens, and repeatedly, yet in vein, Mr Stevens would say, “Please don’t ask questions that others have already asked.

Well, I wasn’t here.

Excatly!”

The last straw was when I decided to take a course on acoustics, or the science of music. The teacher was so unbelievably boring that I would find myself walking to class, actually climbing the steps with the books in hand, maybe even reaching the door of the classroom when all of the sudden I would get the thought in my head, “Gosh, cartoons are on at home. I can just read the book and be done with this class.” I had never had such unprofessional or nonacademic thoughts in my life, and I was embarrassed by them. On the other hand, to spend two hours falling asleep in this acoustics class was anything but productive. Out of 14 weeks, I attended this course four times, two of which were for exams. On the exams, I made a 95 and 100. In other words, without even attending the last half of the course, I got every single question on the final exam correct. Like I said, Mom and Dad were paying for the tuition, and I felt guilty about their spending money on bullshit like that. I already had a Bachelor’s degree, so this was a waste in that the coursework didn’t apply to an advanced credential.

I told my piano teacher Jeff of my concern and suggested that I was thinking of working toward a higher degree. He said, “What’s a Master’s degree? It’s a piece of paper. You want a piece of paper, I’ll give you a piece of paper. Here! Take this piece of paper and write ‘Master’s degree’ on it.” I walked out of his office perplexed and discouraged, and I spent the following week soul searching. I wanted to study, but what and how? I knew I wanted to be a professor, but in what and how? I went to his office the following week and said, “Jeff, I know you think it’s just a piece of paper, but you know what? I want that piece of paper!

So what are you going to do?

I don’t know what I’m going to study yet—either languages or music—but I’m going to go home to Utah, and I’m going to go take the GRE and see how I do. If I do OK, then I’ll take that score and go to graduate school.”

I called the Graduate Record Examination people in New Jersey and found out there was a test scheduled for the first weekend in June that I could take in Utah. I had plans to go to Utah to visit the family at that time, so I decided to take three weeks, study at home, and then take the exam. I bought a Barron’s GRE study guide, and I opened it on the United Airlines flight home. In Utah, I studied every day. I reviewed the math and I made flash cards of all the vocabulary. It was hard. I didn’t know the words. I hadn’t been an avid reader of novels throughout my life, and many of the words seemed difficult. And I took all the practice tests I could, each one lasting for three hours and 40 minutes. I demanded that Mom and Dad not interrupt me. They did once, and I barked, much to their disapproval, yet they didn’t interrupt me anymore. I remember thinking that the math part might be easy for me because it didn’t seem to go beyond ninth grade geometry. I reviewed the theorems and I recalculated greatest common multiples. I made lists of Greek and Latin roots, and I practiced choosing ABCD choices as quickly as I could. I practiced synonyms and antonyms, and I talked about the vocabulary with Dad at the dinner table since he seemed pretty familiar with the words. He also said, “Yes, these are indeed words you will need to read articles in graduate school.” If nothing else, I was preparing for graduate work, regardless of how the exam score ended up.

My friend Judith had also come to Utah to take the GRE, too. Somehow, our thinking was similar. She said, though, that we needed to relax and we needed coffee in order to get through the exam. So, she recommended that we get together at 7:00 for breakfast at our favorite hangout in Logan, a restaurant called JB’s, and have French toast, coffee, and a good laugh before the exam. The exam started at 9:00, and we were there early, with our identification and forms in hand. I was still nervous. I really wanted to do well. Judith did too. The exam lasted the full 3 hours and 40 minutes, though it felt like 15 minutes. We took six separate exams, two for math, two for verbal, and two for logical, which could have counted if we were interested in doing law school. We got a break after the sixth exam, but we still had a seventh left. We met in front of the bathrooms and agreed that we wanted our seventh exam to be math because it had been by far the easiest. We both got the math part, and we danced happily out of the exam center, both thinking we had done pretty well. I was so happy I had spent three weeks preparing. The Educational Testing Center says you can’t prepare, but I don’t believe them. I needed the review, and I needed to understand how the test was put together so I could take it.

When I got home, Mom and Dad said, “So, how was it?

I think I did OK! I think I’ll be able to get into some grad school somewhere.

That’s great! However, we have some bad news.

What?

United Airlines has gone on strike, and your flight from Salt Lake City to Denver tomorrow has been canceled.

What are we going to do?

We don’t know. Can you call United?”

I called and waited for a half hour on hold before I talked to anyone. “Our policy during times of strike is that we can help people get to the next closet airport where there isn’t a canceled flight. In your case, your flight is out of the next closest airport, and since that’s Denver and it’s just in the next state over, we don’t do anything.

But Denver is 550 miles away.

Yeah, but for most people, the next airport is just a matter of 50 miles or so.

Where are you right now?

New York!

Exactly! So what do I do? Will I get a refund if I miss my plane in Denver?

Your fare is a nonrefundable fare, so no!

So you’re telling me that I have to figure out how to get to Denver by 7:00 tomorrow morning, and it’s already 1:00 pm here now?

I don’t know what you’re complaining about. It’s just the next state over.

You don’t understand geography! Utah and Colorado are big states and they have mountains. It is at least 12 hours from my home to Denver, and it’s even longer if I go by bus.

Sorry!”

I hung up and Mom said, “How’d it go?

I either get to Denver by 7:00 to catch the flight to Boston, or I lose the ticket altogether.

Well, I guess we better get in the car.

Huh?

We need to see family in Kansas, and we were thinking about going this week, so we might as well just go right now.”

We all packed inside an hour, loaded the car, put the dog in the garage, called the neighbors and left them our key, made a reservation at a Denver Motel 6, and drove out.

We arrived in Laramie, Wyoming to have dinner around 7:30, having made extremely good time. I guess Dad was speeding some. At the restaurant was a map of the area between Laramie and Denver. Normally, we had driven straight east to Cheyenne, and then turned a 90 degree angle south to Denver. However, I noticed on the map that if we took a smaller road to the southeast, it could act like a hypotenuse of our original map plan and perhaps we could get to Denver sooner. There was also a road called Owl Creek Road, just north of Fort Collins, Colorado that linked the hypotenuse road and the major southbound interstate. Dad agreed it seemed like a wise idea to take that short cut.

We headed southeast, crossed into Colorado, and found Owl Creek Road. The road was even marked with a sign directing us to Interstate 25. We felt like we had really done the right thing. Dad turned left. Within a mile, though, the pavement ended and we were on a dirt road. We came to a T-intersection, but most of the tire tracks were heading south. Mom said, “Head south!” but Dad turned left. My brother, mom, and I all shouted at him, “Dad, you’re going to wrong way!” He said angrily, “No, this is south, and I’m driving!” He was actually driving north.

“Don, you’re going the wrong way!” Mom insisted.

The banter and arguing continued. The road bent again to the right and we were again going straight east, but then Dad stopped the car.

“What’s wrong?”

“I don’t know where we are. We’re lost.”

Mom said, “Just go back and head south on that road we all wanted you to go on.

It’s too far back there. If we’re going east, we’re bound to run into I-25. But I don’t know.”

Then my brother Dane said, “Hey, look up ahead.” There was a light yellow light glowing in the twilight. It was nearly 9:30 on that summer night. Mom said, “Hey, someone is waving. Drive up there.”

We drove up to the light and found a family: a husband, a wife, and three children, all aged under 7. Dad rolled down his window and said, “You OK?”

“Our van broke down. We’ve been stranded here for hours and you’re the first car we’ve seen all evening. Will you please help us?

Where are you going?

Fort Collins.

Do you know how to get there from here?

Yes!

Then get in.”

We had an Audi that normally seated just four people. Now, we had nine in the car. My brother and I each had a child on our laps. The man had his wife on his lap, and Mom held the baby. The twilight turned to pitch black as we finally reached the interstate. The wife directed Dad to the Fort Collins exit. They lived not half a mile from the highway, so we dropped a grateful family off at their home just to the north of Fort Collins. We still had an hour to drive, but we finally reached the Motel 6 just shy of midnight, exhausted.

As we lay in the bed with the alarm set for the following morning, Mom and Dad discussed the Owl Creek Road experience. Dad said, “I was really turned around, and I was panicked. I did not want to go anymore in any direction.

How did you get so turned around?” Mom asked.

“I don’t know.

But if we hadn’t turned the wrong way, we would have never picked up that family, and who knows what would have happened to them if they had had to spend the night out there.

I was worried that we were going to have to spend the night out there!

It was a very odd experience.

Very odd

I wonder if we were meant to go there.”

Many people encounter strange experiences that make them wonder if there is a god or a divine spirit or guardian angel. This was my family’s. We’ve questioned God and the Bible and spirituality to the point of not directly choosing any religion but appreciating the good of many. Still, the idea of guardian angels or predestination is hard to have intrinsic faith for, no matter how hard I try. But I will never be able to explain this one. The list of coincidences is just too long: strike, no compassion from United personnel, decision to drive 12 hours right away, observation of a possible short cut on an unexpected map at a restaurant, sign for the highway but no sign at the fork in the road, Dad’s taking the wrong road and panicking and stopping in the twilight, a flicker down the road that my brother noticed, and the five-member family getting in with us in our four-seat car.

And it all worked out. The family got home safe and sound. We got to the Denver Motel 6. I got on the plane Boston. My family got to Kansas. And I got to graduate school.

Insert Waltz for my father