For most people, music is an important part of daily life. Some rely on music to get them through the morning commute, while others turn up a favourite playlist to stay pumped during a workout. When words fail, music provides a way to connect with others and engage with memories and emotions. Music has been part of my daily routine for most of my adult life. During my teaching days my daughter told me she could hear me on the piano accordion more than one hundred feet beyond our house. In summer I take it on the front deck. Since my retirement, practically every morning, after checking the New York Sports scene on the computer keyboard, I turn my attention to the Yamaha keyboard. I make no claims to be a virtuoso, being content to entertain myself. I simply follow Robert Schumann's advice - "When you play, never mind who listens to you." I have collected songs appropriate for the seasons: love songs for Valentines, Irish songs for St. Patrick's, war songs for November and Christmas songs for December, as well as Gospel songs. In my formative years the only music I remember was singing Church hymns and choruses. We got our first radio when I became a teenager and I was captivated by Hank Snow's picking songs such as "The Gal Who Invented Kissin" and "Rhumba Bougie." In 1952 a seventeen-year-old left on the Newfie Bullet for a teaching position at South Brook, Pasadena (now Pasadena). I soon discovered a difference in lifestyle; while mine was more sedate and serious, theirs was more fun-loving and partying. Attending coyly a few parties, I enjoyed hearing three members of the same family play the guitar and sing. A lady who owned a store just across the road opposite the school was an excellent piano player who played by ear. On one occasion she came over to the school and I asked her to play "Jambalaya" on an old piano there and I think I can still hear it. By the time spring came I had saved enough from my seventy-six dollar monthly check to buy a cheap Harmony guitar. A friend who had done a correspondence course taught me a few fundamentals as we gathered in some barn in Pasadena. When I returned to Old Perlican I must have frayed some nerves with my incessant playing. Practically every time we meet since, my younger brother still insists I play the "Wildwood Flower." A few years later in the early '60s I owned a Fender electric guitar and loved the "Ventures" instrumentals. A lady who lived a distance away told me how much she enjoyed my playing "Wheels." Except for a couple of funerals, the only time I recall playing at Old Perlican was at a Come Home Year 1996 concert when I sang "Come Back To Old Perlican." My second year I taught at Norman's Cove where I played with a few guys on the guitar. About thirty years after at a Lions Convention a guy from there playing the guitar said I showed him the first chords on the guitar. The third year at Sunnyside was even better. By now I had advanced to a Jumbo Gibson guitar, and I stayed with a guy who was an excellent fiddle player. Quite often we would have a jam session and on one occasion we even played for a Square Dance at the Orange Lodge. I also played a part in a play called, "The Little Clodhopper" in which I sang and played "I Wish I Had Someone to Love Me." During my fourth year at Summerville I used to visit a house quite frequently where two brothers played and sang. We played and sang once at a concert. Following university in 1960, I went to Glovertown where I knew four competent musicians and vocalists who performed in a band at Collins' Square Pond during the heyday of Rock and Roll and the Twist. I, somehow, was a fill-in for an absent guitarist on one occasion. I also learned the basics of the piano-accordion from one of the band members. In 1962 when I moved to Gambo, I purchased a Piano Accordion, a Martin D28, as well as a Fender Electric guitar. In the late '60s after moving to my own home I purchased a Hammond Organ, and later a piano. Since my retirement I've replaced the organ and piano with a Yamaha keyboard. I enjoyed participating in the Eastport Accordion Festival, including the Salvage Stages. After thirteen years I found it was becoming too difficult to carry the twenty-three-pound accordion over stairs and embankments. Recently I've found it necessary to curtail my church playing, restricting it to important functions, funerals, and seniors. Music invokes memories and makes our minds travel. On hearing a particular song, we are magically taken back to a certain moment in time. How will I ever forget John Amirante's singing before Game 7 of the 1994 Stanley Cup final between the Rangers and Canucks, when his anthem was drowned out by the fans, who were about to witness the team's only championship since 1940. Music holds us together when our world falls apart; it transcends time and is stronger than death. I'll conclude with a part of Stuart Stott's song "Music in My Mother's House": "Now I don't claim much talent, but I've always loved to play, And I guess I will until my dying day." Above Photo: Charles J. and A. Frank Submitted by Charles Beckett, Gambo, NL   Submitted By: NULL