My Life as a violinist

To make one's living as a violinist/violin teacher requires a number of fortuitous steps that probably need to happen in a particular order. This is my particular journey.....

It  helps to have a dominant parent to guide and promote your musical growth. In my case it was my father who loved music but chose being a missionary to India/pastor in America as his profession. He played violin as a hobby. I was the first born child and some of my earliest memories are of hearing him play his violin in our living room at our home in Umalla, India.

My  story begins at Prospect Point the vacation home for Church of the Brethren missionaries near Sisters Bazaar in Landour/Mussoorie, in the foothills of the Himalayas. I was recovering from chicken pox and my Dad gave me a half size violin he had purchased in Mussoorie. There was no bow yet

. "See if you can pluck out Twinkle Star."he suggested.

I was six years old, but according to family lore he observed that I spent nearly an hour before somewhat succeeding at the task. Soon a bow was added and he began sessions where I learned tunes by rote, a system like the Suzuki method before there was such.  

The family returned to the work at Umalla and my Dad designed rote lessons for a while. Next he introduced the onerous lessons where one had to read the notes. I balked at that but he kindly insisted. He picked easy familiar tunes such as hymns and ditties.  

From them he introduced me to the Kalliwoda duets. We moved to Anklesvar, and a Bollinger family whose teen age son, Dick, who played violin quite well would occasionally visit and make music with Dad. There was  also a trip to Mumbai to hear  the Mumbai Symphony but I was  not impressed. World War II was winding down and soon we were on our way back to Virginia and the family homeplace near Green Hill Church of the Brethren.

By now I had three younger brothers. John was soon given a trumpet and received some rudimentary lessons. The tempo of my father's work increased and I began lessons with a Mrs. Spruhan of Salem, Virginia.  I performed at a cousin's wedding. And in a few years the family was back in India.

I attended Woodstock School in the foothills of the Himalayas. Played in the school 's orchestra. I took lessons from Mr. DeNaroma the orchestra conductor and violinist. I may have begun some Kreutzer etudes. I must have not made the requisite progress so my father had me get some good coaching from Judy Schiller a senior student at the behest of my Dad.

Returned to the Roanoke area and my father had me take lessons from the concertmeister of the newly organized Roanoke Symphony, Carl Jaspan. It was this man who showed me how to practice, knew how to inspire me and invited me to join the Roanoke Symphony. I began to grow seriously as a musician. And then my father took a pastorate at Mathias, WV. To keep me progressing, my father put me with Edgar Anderson, strings professor at Madison College in Harrisonburg. 

Next, I attended Shenandoah Conservatory at Dayton, Virginia, married Lib Flory, finished college at Bridgewater and taught two years of elementary school. Decided to go for a Master's degree at James Madison which was morphing into a university. I completed course work and while teaching at Lynchburg connected with Roger Taylor who was playing in the Roanoke Symphony. He invited me to rejoin which I did. Family and friends helped me parlay that into a job teaching Strings in Roanoke City schools. That was how I made it my career. Lib and our baby daughter, Lisa, soon joined me and my career got underway.

The girls grew and I repeated my father's teaching with them. They played in my school ensembles and Cathy decided to play cello. We switched her over and later we formed a trio/quartet and played weddings. The girls joined the Roanoke Youth Symphony and also played in our Regional and All State orchestras. Our Patrick Henry String orchestra did well at District VI adjudications. Our family joined First Baptist and joined their musical activities.

During this decade I I also was associated with Virginia Music Camp as part of their faculty at Massenetta Springs Conference Center and the the conductors orchestra sponsored by the American Symphony Orchestra League  at Orkney Springs, Virginia. AI verified a 1970 year I was there in the 2cnd  violin section.

In my last decades with the Roanoke City schools I was invited to play a dinner engagement at the Greenbrier Resort Hotel by Hal Walls. My accompanist was  a well known music professor at Hollins University. I was quite nervous at my first gig in the Crystal dining room, but he made me feel at ease. Several weeks that summer Hal called again and we did another. That summer the Greenbrier decade and a half began. I was repeating symphony repertoire so I made the decision to drop the Symphony.

Soon he became unavailable and I had to find another accompanist. Someone recommended a Camille Caruthers at First Baptist. We did the first gig at the Greenbrier and then another until she was one of the main pianists there. The regular gig went something like this as memory serves:

Leaved Roanoke around 2:30. Arrive at the Greenbrier around 4 pm. Play a Tea set for an hour, eat supper downstairs where the other hotel workers ate. Go to either the Crystal or Main dining room and play from 7:30 to about  10 pm with 15 minute breaks. It was pleasant work and paid well. We would get home around midnight. For me these gigs occurred several times a week and much more her as she was the main accompanist for another very elderly violinist who lived in the town. We also played private parties in some of the other conference rooms. With other combinations I played weddings and other celebratory occasions or as a strolling violinist.

I began to have significant problems standing. One time Jim Glazebrook was there at the Greenbrier. He was the concertmeister of the Roanoke Symphony. I introduced them to each other. One time I just couldn't play and she called him. Later, they married and my time at the Greenbrier was essentially over.

A few years later we moved to Midlothian, Virginia to be near our daughter Cathy. I joined the Richmond Philharmonic, played about 10 years with them and made some fine contacts that I parlayed into a fruitful decade of quartet playing. When I was about 86, old age made it advisable to end my public musucal activites.

Since I'm writing this in my last years, I can't vouch for the accuracy of the years, only general memories. 

 

  

Friends of Woodstock 2014: A perspective from one

Chapel building

WOSA 2014 was an interesting experience all round. Friday we drove to Baltimore and the Notre Dame University campus which was to be our location for the next 5 days. Our impression was that we would be residing in Meletia Hall, but we were strung out over another building that also was our dining hall. Our room was on the second floor, small with two little beds and a ceiling fan. No air conditioning and it was quite warm at night to say the least! Also, bathroom facilities were down the hall for Lib and down the next hall for me. Suffice it to say we did a lot of walking when the need required it.

Friday afternoon after getting our keys and room assignments we went down to the first floor gathering room and relearned not only our classmates but a few from other classes too. Our evening meal was a well prepared crab cake or vegetable sit down dinner and gave us time for further visiting.

A number of activities occur at a WOSA. We learned that the school was on a better financial footing. That a new principal had a powerful vision for the future that he seemed capable of implementing. And that faulty, staff, and board members  shared his enthusiasm and vision. Because he stopped at our table one afternoon and talked about Woodstock and answered specific concerns made me even more confident of his leadership ability.

Woodstock is an old school  in the foothills of the Himalayas.. It has reinvented itself numerous times and appears to be doing so again. Alumni gifts have provided for several new buildings and remodeled some of the older ones. It is an international school and has prepared well to serve the educational needs of the 21st century. The new name for WOSA is Friends of Woodstock School.

Young at heart trying Bollywood moves

On the evening of the khanna we were treated to a program of Indian dance, classical and Bollywood style. The picture on the left was Woodstock alumni of the younger generations trying out Bollywood style moves. At the bottom is a picture of a young 9th grade Indian girl performing a more classical dance.

After our whole school meeting was over our class of 54-55 reunion continued on for two more days.Our big activity on Monday was an Indian supper at the Indigma restaurant, downtown. Tasty food mixed with good conversation amid perfect ambiance.

On Tuesday we were treated to an Inner Harbor boat cruise with lunch. This allowed for more intimate conversation with just 4-6 at a table. After lunch we went on the open air upstairs deck to enjoy the passing scenery of landmarks and boats about their business or tied up.

We completed the reunion by assembling together to view pics from Woodstock and past reunions. It was one of the best reunions I had planned not to attend.  I  try to attend  these unique gatherings when they are in mountain venues. Because our Delaware family is nearby, we were able to visit them also.

class of 54-55 at Indian restaurant

walking down the avenue

waterfront of Inner Harbor, Baltimore

9th grade Indian student  performing Indian dance

Autumn Memories

The advent of Autumn always puts me in a mellow mood. I have loved this time of the year for the great memories it returns to me year after year.

In my early teen years I attended Woodstock School in the foothills of the Himalayas.  Fall was the season for hiking the nearby mountains and valleys and enjoying treks over to Mussoorie without the fear of being inundated by rain. It was also a melancholy time as the Fall Line foretold Going Down Day and separation from our classmates and friends. It was around this time that I became acquainted with the popular“September Song”

Marriage and the birth of two daughters found us living in Roanoke, Virginia. The Blue Ridge Parkway runs through Roanoke and our family spent some great Fall weekends  as a family driving down to the Peaks of Otter and climbing to the top of Sharp Top mountain. It is one of Virginia’s treasure’s especially in autumn. After the girls left home for college and marriage Lib and I enjoyed some trips to Gatlinburg, Tennessee, a mountain city resort area resembling Mussoorie. The tall pines and cedars at the 4000 foot altitude were uncannily similar to those adorning the Himalayan foothills.

Then a request to play for dinner at the Greenbrier resort hotel began a new sideline  which would add to my Fall memories. The back country road Va.#311 from Salem to near White Sulphur Springs has to be one of the finest drives when the leaves are at their peak. The road runs over two mountains and the view from near the summit of Pott’s mountain when the sun is low on the horizon is a sight to behold. Over on the West Va. side of the trip the road winds through miles of valley scenery of farms and homes nestled among tall oak and maples.Then #311 junctions with I-64 and shortly one is arriving at the Greenbrier.

I performed on a fairly regular basis at the Greenbrier for nearly 20 years and always enjoyed being there in the autumn. There would be a fire in the huge main entry hallway. My accompanist and I would play for tea, go to supper in the basement where all the supporting people ate, and then play for three hours in one of the many dining rooms. Our diners always appeared  happier and more jovial during this season. And for whatever reason my violin seemed more resonant matching their mood. Then we moved to Richmond, Va.

Last year Lib and I celebrated this time of the year with a bus tour to New England. It was a little earlier than the present blog and rainy weather made some of it rather dreary. However, there were some really fine days especially toward the last when we were in the northern Vermont mountains. One afternoon in particular we were at the summit of a ski resort and could almost see over into Canada. The air was crisp and the vista stretched forever, a beautiful unforgettable panoply of low mountains one after the other in scarlets and russets.

This year we haven’t trekked anywhere. Some health issues await a procedure to eliminate the pain from walking and movement for Lib. Instead when I see a beautiful tree in all its flaming glory it will remind me of days past in this wonderful season of the year.

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Messiah

My first encounter with the music of Handel’s “Messiah” was the Easter portion performed by a community group of missionary parents in the Spring at Woodstock School some time during the late 1940's. Dr. Leonard Blickenstaff was either the director or one of the prime promoters. I was perhaps 13 or 14 years old at the time and struggling to learn the violin.

When we returned from India to America my father took us to Messiah rehearsals at Bridgewater College. Prof. Nelson T. Huffman was the conductor and sang the lead tenor arias. This was the Christmas portion and was performed in the Bridgewater Church of the Brethren and then there was usually a run out to a church in Luray. I was about 16-18 years old during those years and had been a member of the violin section of the Roanoke Symphony for two years.

During my early years as strings instructor at Patrick Henry HS during the late 1960's we performed the Christmas section with the school choir several years. One year we had a Miss Virginia to solo the soprano arias. David Burgess, our band director conducted.

Several times the Roanoke Symphony performed “Messiah” under different conductors.

One of the most moving performances was a summer one at Woodstock, Virginia with the Summer Institute Orchestra of the American Symphony Orchestra League conducted by
Dr. Richard Lert who was in his eighties at the time. He seemed to know it by heart and honed the orchestra, soloists, and chorus to apparent perfection. During the performance a great thunder storm added to the drama of the music!

This past summer our quartet with added musicians read through the string parts of the Messiah at Christina’s home here in Richmond. This Saturday we will read through it again. Next Saturday I will rehearse with a chorus that will read through, not polish and then perform it on Sunday at the Bon Air Presbyterian Church.

This year on November 10 there was a surprise performance of the Hallelujah chorus by 600 in a New York shopping mall. It has gotten great play on the web. One could see folks wiping their eyes as the powerful words and music proclaimed the good news of our Savior. This was Christmas unabashedly sung. As the camera panned the event one saw the great joy and happiness of the singers and those who apparently were just mouthing the words. All were involved! What a beautiful Christmas gift Handel bequeathed to the world!

A Landour Morning....

Woke up to a beautiful morning. The sky is deep blue and the temperature is in the brisk forty’s. The flowers are still blooming with their Spring vigor. Reminds me of “Landour, Mussoorie” April mornings. From Prospect Point, at the top of the hillside, we would walk down the zig-zag mile path to Woodstock School. We would be dressed for the chill mountain air. The twenty or so minutes it took to reach our destination was enough exertion to stimulate the best wide awake class room ready to learn mental state.

It is a little different here...there are no mountains and no deodar conifers to perfume the air nor mock orange blossoms. (We had a mock orange at Idavere in Roanoke and mountains all around).Still, I relish the expectancy that seems to hover in the air on these special days. Later the sun will warm everything just up to comfortable. That would be around 10:30 when the school had its mid morning break. The box wallahs would be gathered in front of Parker Hall waiting for the students to rush out to buy sweet goodies from them. For a few minutes the world seemed suspended in timeless perfection, when the Lord might look down from above and pronounce his creation “good”. I thought about all this while taking the trash out to the garbage bin this morning.

Some Favorite Bloggers....

I am fascinated by people who think and write about their life journeys. And if they have had some parallel experiences the more I resonate. I’m interested in how Christians think about expressing their faith through their lives. People who have lived some part of their lives in India especially in the Himalayas or who attended Woodstock School often have interests and concerns that are similar to mine. In this late autumn of my life I wanted to express my appreciation for the insights these seekers have provided me as I encountered them on the Web.

I ran across Jill three or four years ago. She was a young architect, designing schools for Himalayan village children. An adventurous young woman who also was a good photographer, she took well composed pictures of the Har-ki-dun mountain valley, a place I’d never been. But, above all, Jill was sensitively aware that she was put on this earth for a purpose. Her eloquent blogs attested to that. Her routine experiences were prayer like dialogues with her Creator.

Later, she made a pilgrimage to Africa for a short time to document the work of one group among many that seeks to make a difference there. Her photographer’s eye improved. There are some striking pictures from that collection.

Returning to California she is now making her way in life as a professional photographer. Jill is representative of the new Seekers. A word that describes the working out of their faith is missional. It resembles in several ways the early Anabaptist history of my own denomination, the Church of the Brethren.

Another is Rajiv. A Roanoke friend introduced me to him just this past year. He is an American military man with Indian parentage, serving in Afghanistan. He is where the rubber hits the road, so to speak, between two huge movements: the West and its basically hedonistic outlook on life and its bitter enemy, the small, fanatical and austere branch of fundamentalist Islam. His business is to conduct successful warfare against an implacable enemy. Yet, while thus occupied he muses about how to retain his humanity in such inhospitable circumstances. Miscalculation with such enormous force at his disposal can either take lives of his men or cause civilian casualties. It’s a delicate tight wire to walk. His blogs are earthy, entertaining, and informative. Rajiv understands his role in this pivotal effort, yet his blogs document in great detail that he is not just reacting but is thoughtfully proactive. If there is hope for success in Afghanistan, it will come from more who are like him.

Finally, there is the small but articulate group of bloggers who are living an interesting adventure as teachers at Woodstock School in the foothills of the Himalayas. It’s been interesting to follow them from their first impressions to settling in to the routine if there is such there. I recommend them to anyone who is interested in teaching there or even visiting in the area. This unique institution provides all who attend there the possibility of acquiring the third eye, that sees life from a more balanced perspective.

Woodstock/Mussoorie

Sometimes a time and place in life is so unique that one is loathe to lose it. Life moves on...and should. Happily for some there are memory tools now available to retrace at least a portion. That I spent twelve years in India changed my outlook profoundly. A significant part of that outlook has to be attributed to the three plus years at Woodstock. Bits and pieces of this are strewn through past postings...this apologia puts it all in one recent place.

Imagine that in your most impressionable teen years you suddenly found yourself half way round the globe at a spot in the foothills of the great Himalayas. It was a place you had visited just slightly as a young child several times, enough that certain pleasurable impressions had imprinted themselves in the mind. Now you were going to school there. You went for three years and then just as suddenly were uprooted from this Shangri-la like spot and all its associations back to your
“real” world. Suppose a class mate from that time and place tracked you down and invited you to join others who had this experience in a round-robin letter. Later you would attend annual meetings of alumni, sing the school songs, see familiar faces now older, participate in the hearing/retelling the lore of this special institution. All this would tend to expand the importance of this place in the mind, would it not? And because you were retired and used computers it became possible to vicariously revisit this wondrous place. If there were people blogging about their experiences there, it might be tempting to make contact. And I did.


Woodstockers tend to experience some things in common. First and foremost are the mountains. One exists among mountains in Mussoorie. The Woodstock campus is spread along the flanks of a ridge and the dorms, especially Midlands rests on a diminutive hill. The cottages where parents stayed during their vacation times dotted the mountainside. Ours ( Prospect Point) had one of the finest views from the front and side yards. From the side yard we could often see the great ice covered peaks of the greater Himalayas. The front yard presented a great vista of the Dune valley in the distance and the roofs of Ridgewood and Midlands in the foreground valley below.

Seasons were more pronounced or so it seemed. When I first arrived at Prospect Point in early March it was possible to see a snow fall. Mornings were definitely chilly and the smell of oak wood burning in the fireplace was an every day and ordinary sensory experience. Spring followed shortly with the fragrance of Mock Orange and other flowers coupled with the pungent aroma of deodar when the wind blew through their boughs. These were the days when the air was crystal clean and filled with a mysterious expectancy.

Next would come the monsoons. This meant spectacular thunderstorms, the proliferation of insects and ferns, and a pervasive “stickiness” from the high humidity. It was a season of some danger. There were landslides when too much rain separated the layers of soil from their anchors in the rocks. Small earthquakes in an earthquake prone zone also caused landslides. I was there when Parker Hall had a big one right across from the front porch. One of my school mates lost part of his family when part of the mountain slid into their cottage a few years previous. Though never stung by one,I found a small scorpion one morning clinging to a sock
I was about to pull over my foot.

Finally the monsoons drifted away and fall crept slowly down the great crags. This was a season of great beauty. It was a time to hike and to enjoy outdoor sports. All the while, Woodstock was working its magic into the core of one's being.It was a also a time of deepening melancholy as the days shortened. We would soon be separating from our pals and girl friends over the winter break.

We were there from all over the world. We heard English with numerous accents. Some of us even affected “Babu” English that was spoken by our Indian friends. If we had strong religious convictions, we at least encountered others of different ersuasions and so learned to entertain other possibilities. American culture prevailed at that time, but British and Indian were surely next in line. Woodstock saw itself as a “world” institution where people came together to learn of each other and develop a great respect for the environment. We were all students, whether we occupied the role of administrator, mentor, auxiliary, or pupil. Among the students were often outstanding musicians, potential scientists, or world rulers in the making. Personalities were encouraged to think freely yet learned not to be totally abrasive. Young males were given an astonishing amount of freedom to explore the environs.

Meals, worship experiences, sports events, walks to the bazaars, dorm life, special days and celebrations, the shared music both performed and heard, all served to intensify this unique time in one’s existence. Because it was a boarding school and there was no family to return to each day, faculty became almost surrogate parents. Dorm room mates became strong friends or sometimes not. There was often intense competition, especially in the sports venues. Friends tended to remain friends for a lifetime.

Woodstock capitalized on this experience. It opened itself to the world by making good use of the Net. It has encouraged the community to blog. Jeanne, Jennie, James and Nate are teachers and blog regularly. Through them I’m able to reconstruct for myself a Woodstock and Mussoorie in real time. Though it is not possible for me to hop on a plane and be there, I can participate in imagination by reading their posted activitiies and impressions. Now when I see their names associated with campus activities and community projects in the school paper, The Quadrangle, I feel as if I know them. When they first arrived it took a season to become accustomed to India, Woodstock, and Mussoorie. Each is at a predictable stage and is being shaped by the “Woodstock” experience. It is so unique that it would take a very hard heart not to be seduced by it. My grateful thanks to them for sharing their lives so eloquently with those who have already been or may be induced to go there.

Others arrive in Mussorie as tourists or NGO’s, or come to learn Hindi at the Landour Language School. The NGO’s often do both, learn Hindi and then assist with community projects in the mountain villages that abound in the valleys. That's how I found Jill and David, two who were working in education and architecture. Though both are now in the US, their blogs still speak to me. Google also has amazing maps of the Mussoorie area and it is possible to see most of the Woodstock buildings and many of the hillside cottages, even Prospect Point, if one knows where to look.

My love of mountains, interest in things Indian and international, joy in music making, tendency to look deeper and be more than casually reflective must certainly derive from those unique years.

Looping Back

My life of many years is taking a most interesting turn. For whatever reason I’m being allowed to revisit tokens of my very young years. They return by way of activities, people, and circumstances. We have moved to Midlothian, Virginia to be near our daughter’s family and this has added to the “past” experiences.

Yesterday we attended church at West Richmond Church of the Brethren. We have been there several times and this time we also participated in the world wide Christian observation of communion with the “footwashing” and shared meal. Across from us at the meal table were our minister and a visitor from the Episcopal persuasion. Our minister is the son of a good friend of ours when my wife and I were married. The Episcopal visitor in conversation spoke about “Orkney Spring”. That brought back many memories of my orchestral experiences in the conductors’ orchestra taught by Dr. Richard Lert there in summers long ago. In the same church and at the communion service was an Indian friend whose father and my father were friends when I was a missionary’s son in India. Three doors to my varied past all in one place!

Here in Richmond I’ve joined the Richmond Philharmonic. The concertmeister is an Indian and when I mentioned the Bombay Symphony at my audition, think he said he had played in it. Also, he had performed in the Roanoke Symphony, but after the time when I was there. We’re going to perform Beethoven’s “Eroica” and Sibelius’ “Finlandia” both compositions I have played several times with other orchestras. So musically I’m also returning “home”.

Through the web and blogging I have been allowed to experience vicariously Woodstock school, Mussoorie, and the Himalayas. It’s been a hoot to read the experiences of young faculty and employees just being there for the first time! Now they can include pictures and short movies in their blogs which enhances their verbal descriptions. This past winter there was a wonderful and rare snow storm which generated some awesome photos.
Woodstock in Winter
Attending WOSA and class reunions has also contributed to revisiting this important past.

As I teach my young grandson how to “fiddle” I’m reminded of my own frustrations which my wise father guided me through. I’m not sure that my grandson will be a professional musician, but the road to musical usefulness goes through some narrow “eyes” . They have to be negotiated and the adult doing the teaching has to be patient and wise with his young charge. Pray that I have both! I would love to pass on this gift to him.

Before moving to Richmond, we had joined the Oak Grove CoB after two decades in Roanoke’s First Baptist church. That was a looping back to the denomination of both Lib and I. When we left First Baptist we visited several congregations. On our first visit to Oak Grove we were greeted by name by an old friend of my teen years! Several visits later we knew this was “home” and in some sense it will always be our "home" church.

Prospect Point

About a year ago I discovered a picture of Prospect Point on the web. Guess that shows that anything that gets on the web’s machinery is retrievable. One just has to know how to search. I would certainly like to know more of its history...who built it, when, why that particular location, and how it got it’s name. Below it is a smaller twin, Prospect Lodge. Perhaps it was built by the same person. We lived here for several months of the school year from 1943-45 and again from 1949-1951 while attending Woodstock School.

Prospect Point was built near the summit of a small hill across from Sisters Bazaar near Landour/Mussoorie. Behind it and a little lower was the large British hospital where soldiers from Burma and other nearby countries from World War II were sent to convalesce. It’s just another tag with which to identify its general location. From the small front yard, looking over a two foot stone wall, one could see the roof tops of Ridgewood and Midlands, the Dune valley and parts of Mussoorie. The schools of St. George’s and Allen might also be identified if one knew where to look. About 150 degrees to the right was a magnificent view of Banderpanch and related mountains. If panoramas were important, this had to be one of the choice locations on the upper ridge as there was a clear view both front and back. Because it had no close neighbors there was a great sense of peaceful solitude surrounding it. A footpath behind the house led to a small knoll which was the summit. From there one could see even more.

From the porch of Parker Hall, at Woodstock School, you began the long climb to Prospect Point by going out and turning right up the long first zig-zag. On a summer afternoon it was a mile or so hike to the top. A long trudge led past at least five or six dwellings, one that was actually named "Zig-Zag". Several of the switch backs were quite steep and sometimes one had to stop briefly to rest. Going down in the morning was the opposite; neophytes soon learned not to run down steep mountain roads, for gravity inevitably won and there followed the tripping and the gravels were not kind to tender knees and palms. Eventually, we reached the steps that brought us to the road that went to Sisters bazaar to the left and the long loop to the right on which there were a multitude of dwellings, many with Irish names. There was also a community water spigot and watering spot. Turning right, there was a hundred yard respite and then began the last several short ramps up past Prospect Lodge and finally one entered the yard of our beloved Prospect Point. If you were lucky, you could stand at one of the two little walls and feel a cool breeze while surveying the immensities below.

Prospect Point was divided into three suites. For most of our times there we were assigned the "Sun" suite. It was on the right side of the building. At this end the living areas made an "L" shape and enclosed the right end of a large porch which had a concrete floor and two or three pillars supporting the overhanging roof. From the porch one entered directly into a small but inviting living room. The next room, straight back was the bedroom used by our parents. I somehow recall it being somewhat dark and subdued in mood even on very bright days. Next was the kitchen/dining area and this was a very light and bright room at all times. The walls were painted a light yellow as were the walls in the living room and it just felt friendly. Finally, there was the other quite small room at the back of the building where we boys slept in bunk beds. Prospect Point also had electricity but no phones when we lived there.

There was a small wood stove in the kitchen which provided warmth on early March days when a hint of winter would still chill the air. It was also used for cooking. There may also have been an electric hotplate. My father was the one who generally fixed breakfast while our mother prepared the other meals. He also met the milkmen at the kitchen door and tested the milk for water before buying. Breakfasts on the weekends were the best, because there was no rush to get out the door. The proposals for how the day might be spent were planned around the breakfast table.

The front porch was where a lot of activity happened. We learned to roller skate there and practiced turns and other moves around the pillars. Other toys, especially small wooden pull toys were played with there by the small children. On Saturdays the trunk wallahs would appear and spread their wares;small Persian or Tibetan wool rugs, wood carvings, silver and gold jewelry, kitchen utensils, anything that might catch the eye of a buyer. Sometimes the porch was a place of contemplative silence, or a brawl of kids getting into a fight before the adults could break it up. I remember hearing Margaret Brooks practicing Schubert’s "Serenade" on her violin from the porch. Because I, too, was learning the violin, the tune remained in my memory.

The small yard was one of my favorite spots. I could stand and look out over a vast scene of mountains, rivers, plains, cities, and hills. One could see small dots moving on Ridgewood’s play yard. With binoculars one could see that those dots were people. Crows and hawks circled below in lazy circles. There was a quail or some sort of bird that had a distinctive "kuwai, kuwai," call.
And then there was the fog. It rolled up from below and suddenly its wispy tendrils enveloped all in misty dampness and the sense of sight was denied to be replace by heightened touch and smell sensations.

One morning I was up and out before the others. Near the servants’ quarters. at the upper end of the yard. stood our venerable and short chowkidar facing out into the new day. He was chanting his prayers, as his ancestors before him, to his Creator. I was moved to see this old and wrinkled human so intently calling out and singing to his Maker. At night, not only were there stars in the heavens but also the myriad pinpoints of Dehradun city lights. Both universes twinkled for the same reason. The other side of the yard faced the high Himalayas. It was also the most fragrant side as there were many large deodars on the bank below.

When we returned to Woodstock in 1949 we were in the "North" suite. That was the year of the small snow storm. Having experienced snow in America we assumed there would be no school and so had the morning to make small snow balls. There wasn’t enough to make a respectable snowman (maybe an inch or so) and it was more of the soft snow pellets variety. I still have photos of that pleasant morning reprieve.

There was one disadvantage to living at Prospect Point, the monsoon thunderstorms! I have pretty much described them in my "Monsoon" article so I won’t reiterate.

Writing this has been a real pleasure. It has revived many memories of a beloved domicile.
If there are others who have stories about Prospect Point please feel free to share them.