[Adventure] with the D's

 

[Adventure 149]

When I was in middle school I had an amazing instrumental music teacher (band, orchestra, keyboards, etc.). She also happened to be my piano teacher and I took lessons at her house. And she was the mother of one of my best friends, Jen. 

Between piano lessons, staying with her kids when she and her husband went to events and on dates (they were old enough to stay on their own but felt more comfortable with me there), band and orchestra and other groups in middle school, and time just hanging out at their house for sleepovers and such, I have tons of memories of spending time with the D'Angelo family.

We went to concerts, recording sessions, amusement parks, sledding, shoe skating ... I even went car shopping with them one weekend. We played songs on water glasses, listened to Mr. D's dad jokes (yo mama!) and played the Radetzky March way too many times in various orchestra and talent show performances. I'd go for a one-night sleepover in the summer and stay for a week. 

Jen came on vacation to Cape Cod with my family one year (in place of my sister Jen, who was part of a program at Wesleyan University that Summer). In high school I'd get out of school early on Wednesdays and she would too, and I'd pick her up and we'd go to Pizza Hut and hang out for a while. She was the maid of honor at my wedding. Mrs. D and Jen's sister Katie and my friend Kathy played music during my wedding ceremony and Mr D's band played at my wedding reception. They were all a huge part of my life.

One thing that happened every Summer that seemed completely normal to me at the time was the party the D's would host at their house every year. During my high school years I would sleep over the night or two before the party and help set up for it. 

There would be live music played by students/former students. Some of the middle school teachers would be in attendance and lots of Mrs. D's students.

Every year Mrs. D instigated the water balloon fight. 

We would eat and play games and make music and have fun.

That's one thing I appreciated about my teachers at the time - the D'Angelos, the Scheithes, the Friends, and others would have fun teaching and have fun hanging out. They would have real conversations with students and challenge us to think outside our realities. They were the types of teachers that saw and drew out the good in the most challenging of students and helped painfully shy kids like me come out of their shells and nurtured self-confidence in them. They celebrated each of us for who we were. 

I was going through more than anyone knew in high school and the D's was a place of safety and refuge for me - a place I could relax and be me.