Finding a Piano Teacher

My family moved to Lemay, Mo. (population 15,000 in the late 1950s), when little towns around St. Louis were growing fast. Our new store on Lemay’s main drag, Lemay Ferry Road, hopefully would be part of that growth.

My brother and I went to the public school from which we walked home with other students for lunch every day. We lived above our store, which offered a panoramic view of the pedestrians shopping out front and glimpses into the lives of the folks who lived in wooden houses out back, along East Adelia Road.

My parents worked happily side-by-side in the store, but years later — when mom told me all the details of the following story — she explained that she was very concerned about our rural education and lack of cultural experiences. To that end, we had lots of books, listened to famous pieces of music, and learned from edifying children’s records. We went to Sunday school 45 minutes away in St. Louis proper, after which we stocked up on kosher food, frequented the art museum, saw plays, and attended the Muny Opera; however, those attempts to develop our appreciation of the arts weren’t deemed adequate. When I was in the third grade in Lemay, mom decided that it was time for me to learn to play the piano, and dad was all for it. I was eager, but we didn’t have a piano, and a piano would have to be carried to the second floor where we lived. Crucially, mom had to hire a piano teacher.

My best friend, Sandy, or other kids I knew in Lemay didn’t take music lessons of any kind. Sandy’s older sister’s boyfriend played the guitar, and a neighbor, Mr. Reprogel, played the harmonica, but it had to be piano lessons for me. Our occasional babysitter, Minnie Fendler, came to the rescue. She lived in a porched house on East Adelia behind our store, where she played cards with my brother and me, and showed off her parrot that “talked.” Most important, she had an upright piano she never played. Miss Fendler was happy to sell us the piano, and her burly nephews got that piano up our stairs. My mother immediately tried to find a local piano teacher. I hoped to ride my bike to piano lessons after school, or maybe a teacher would climb the stairs to me and my untuned piano.

Mom (without the aid of today’s Internet) asked everyone she met for suggestions, but to no avail. Then my friend Sandy’s mother, Terry, mentioned a pianist “who knew all the songs,” but meeting him would severely challenge mom’s comfort level. At the end of Lemay Ferry Road, there was a bar where Terry worked. My mother had never been in a bar her whole life, and she told me that she had pictured the bar as a smoke-filled cavern of inebriated males; however, she was desperate and determined to talk to the bar’s part-time piano player, George, whom Terry suggested.

Mom bravely walked into the bar and approached George Bohler, who agreed to follow her outside to talk. He thought it was cool that we lived above our store, steps and all. He could read sheet music, he said, but he played piano mostly by ear. He knew zero music theory and had never taught anybody anything, but he affirmed that he’d appreciate some extra cash and probably could get along fine with a third grader.

Bohler taught me to read uncomplicated music and found song books of popular tunes that were fun to play. I never practiced scales or etudes, I learned no proper fingering, followed no musical symbols except sharps and flats, knew nothing at all about keys or changing them, and I was allowed to create fake chords that sounded pretty OK. Bohler appreciated my enthusiasm, calmly called out my errors and never complained about the old piano. He bounded cheerfully up our stairs; I welcomed new songs, loved to practice them, and my parents kept paying him.

A year or so later, Bohler married and relocated to Chicago. I was lesson-less until sixth grade, when my family moved to St. Louis proper, and mom immediately hired a popular piano teacher, Mr. Kessler, who was disappointed and frustrated by my lack of proficiency, technique, or desire to learn classical music. After a couple of years, I was worn out by his attempts to bring me up to speed, and my mother finally gave up exhorting me to practice. She and I both knew she’d tried her best.