My son has just won a Julliard Scholarship to study piano in New York. I paid for him to go to New York at the end of his studies as a vacation and as a reward for doing well at school. Then he comes home having gone to an audition unbeknown to me. Anyway, he gets a letter saying he’s been accepted for a piano course and won a scholarship.
I’m not happy about it. I’ve four sons. I hoped at least one of them would follow my footsteps and take over the family business. But instead he wants to be a piano player. There’s no future in that, I told him. There are only a dozen or so decent piano players around the world and it’s a dead cert he wouldn’t be one of them. I always wanted him to learn guitar. That way he could play at parties and stuff. Nothing would make me more prouder. People like it a lot more than piano.
I’ve always insisted my kids learn a trade first. That way, they’ve got something to fall back on. So I’ve fixed him up as an apprentice at the local car mechanic’s. I’ve always been interested in cars and stuff, and even though it’s not the family business, it would be handy having a mechanic in the family to fix any vehicle that breaks down in my transport industry.
I told him if he wants to do any of that queer music shit he can do it after he’s finished his apprenticeship. I’m not working my guts out so someone can play honkey-tonk all day. There are more important things to spend money on, because even though he got a scholarship it’s still bloody costly.
I’ve four sons, as I said, and four daughters. The girls are all married off now; what a job that was. But this is the fourth son that’s wanted to go off and do his own thing. They say kids break their parents’ hearts more often than not. Well I’m certainly getting my share of it.
This one’s the youngest of the eight and the only one left that will have anything to do with me. Kids these days are so ungrateful.