Memories of Chopin

Texas is experiencing unusually cold weather. Yesterday it snowed! I woke up this morning hearing the radio playing the lilting music of Chopin’s Grand Valse Brilliant, bringing back memories of other cold winter mornings, when I awoke each morning to the same piano melody, the theme music for Norman Ross’s early morning radio program in Chicago.

That was 58 years ago. Wally and I were newly married, living in our first “home.” a two-room apartment in the basement of a “three-flat” building. We furnished this dismal hole with a table, chairs, and a small chest scavenged from his parents, as was the old iron bed, which we painted bright red. We were young and in love, and I felt totally happy waking up under the warm covers in that old red bed listening to Chopin.

Music can evoke all sorts of emotions and memories. I always loved Chopin. One of the few records I bought as a teenagers – I did not have money to buy more than a few – was a two-record set of Jose Iturbe playing Chopin waltzes. Years later for a birthday Wally gave me a “long-playing” record of the same thing – there were lilacs on the album cover.

I used to play records while I dusted and waxed the furniture. Sometimes it was Beethoven or Brahms. David was three years old when I asked him what music he wanted to listen to. My toddler said, “Play the pretty music.” He meant Chopin.

David came from California to spend Thanksgiving with me. He is 44 years old. It is hard to evoke the time when he was a little boy, even harder to recapture the feelings I had as a young bride in that Chicago basement.

It was an exciting time. I had an interesting job at the Billboard, where I took dictation for letters to circus performers and called record companies about their new releases. (“How much is that doggie in the window?”) Wally was studying history at Roosevelt University. After work I met him and his colleagues for supper and good conversation before going to my own classes at the Art Institute of Chicago.

Weekends we went to the movies – there were four theaters within a few blocks of our apartment. Or we climbed the five stories to the “peanut gallery” where we paid $2 to hear a pops concert by the Chicago Symphony. Or we sat in a neighborhood bar listening to jazz combos. Or, once, Wally took me to a strip club, where I watched a young girl peel off layers of clothes to reveal an absolutely flat chest.

Yes, Chicago was exciting. And cold. I don’t miss living there. It is nice to think I had the happy experience of being young and in love. But now I am old and living in Texas, where it will soon be warm again.

I still enjoy listening to Chopin in the morning.