RIVER CITY JOURNAL: CONCERT PIANISTS, MILK BOTTLES AND WORLD TRAVEL

Like most familiar newspapers, my favorite hometown weekly from the Ozarks is full of memories as well as news. Most of the memories are pleasant. Some are surprising.

Take the little game I play every Thursday evening after the mail brings me my hometown paper. I sit in my recliner and look at the pictures -- my hometown paper is full of people photos -- and try to guess who these folks are without reading the information below the photo.

You see, what I've discovered is that I have arrived at an age where the friends and classmates I had in my youth now look like I remember their parents. So the game is to decide if this is a photo of some adult I remember from my youth or a son or daughter of that adult.

Earlier this year I went to the celebration the church had for my stepfather's 99th birthday. Another longtime member also was feted on the occasion of her 80th birthday anniversary. This woman's eldest son was probably my best friend in school, so I had known her other two sons and daughter pretty well too. What a shock to go into that church hall and see how much the children looked like their parents. Whoever said it was like deja vu all over again certainly knew what he was talking about.

From time to time there are other surprises in my favorite hometown weekly, like country correspondence that includes a UFO sighting along with Amy Lou's broken arm and Mrs. Hobbs' recovery from an operation.

Last week my eye was caught by the 50-years-ago column. It seems that Mrs. Handford had entertained the Bay View Reading Club with a recital by some of her select piano students. I recognized some of the names of those musical students, including Mrs. Handford's own son, Collins, whom I met once but who by then resided in a big city where he was a travel agent.

Ethel Handford was my piano teacher too, and about 40 years ago I was among the handful of students chosen to play for the Bay View Reading Club when it was Mrs. Handford's turn to be hostess. This was an annual ritual, and the students were made to feel highly honored for the opportunity to play for a living room full of townswomen.

The best part for the performers, however, was getting to sit in Mrs. Handford's kitchen after we had played ("Dance of the Rosebuds" was the only piece of music I ever committed to memory, and it became a Bay View Reading Club standard for a few years) and eating strawberry ice cream sodas prepared by her husband, whose job was to keep us entertained -- and quiet -- while the Bay View members read or talked or whatever it is they do. They still meet, I think, and I have no idea what has replaced these once-a-year piano offerings.

Collins Handford, the piano teacher's son, was the one who convinced his mother that a quart milk bottle full of dimes would be enough money for a trip abroad. My memory is that Mrs. Handford wanted to go to Russia, so she asked all her piano students to pay for their weekly lessons in dimes. Each week we would drop five dimes in the milk bottle on the floor beside the piano.

You may be wondering if Mrs. Handford ever made it to Russia or any other exotic destination. I have to tell you I don't know. When I was taking piano lessons, keeping track of Mrs. Handford's life other than that half-hour on Wednesday evenings was not high on my list of priorities.

I do know, however, that Mrs. Handford sent dozens of young would-be concert pianists to places they had never heard of before, like Carnegie Hall and the opera house in Vienna, by telling engrossing tales about the famous musicians who had performed there.

Her hope was eternal: One day every one of her students would achieve fame on the stage of Carnegie Hall. In my case, the audience no doubt would have been dazzled by "Dance of the Rosebuds."

~R. Joe Sullivan is the editor of the Southeast Missourian.