On the death of my band teacher

I was in the middle of trumpet practice when I got the news.  After playing a string of high notes I never could have hit in high school, I glanced through my email and saw words I had long expected and dreaded:

Mr. Roina died.

I envy those of you who can call him "Ed."  More than four decades later, this teachers' kid still cannot use that level of familiarity.  Perhaps Paula, another teacher's kid, will understand.  But her dad inspired that mixture of both familiarity and respect.  In the avalanche of comments on Facebook, I've seen everything from "he turned my life around" to people who got to interact with him on a frequent and familiar level.

   

Ted Kennedy famously eulogized, "My brother need not be idealized, or enlarged in death beyond what he was in life."  I have tried not to let my memories run away with the real Ed Roina, yet it is hard not to idealize a man, a teacher, who touched so many lives, and who lived a life we might not believe if it were written as fiction.  To understand what I mean, read the excellent piece "And His Band Played On" by Jannette Jauregui, published in the Santa Paula Times 12/03/03.

Some teachers put up with us.  Some liked us.  Some loathed us.  I think that Ed Roina truly loved us.  I know he was harder on some than on others, and that some of us drove him crazy.  But my experience was that he was fair and respectful to all.  Along with family and church, band was where I learned the things that formed the core of who I am, my best self.  I learned to work as a group, and especially in marching band I saw how individuals working together can create a whole that is efficient and beautiful.

Besides music, I learned discipline, responsibility, and adaptation.  I remember Mr. Roina's story about playing tuba to qualify for a position (perhaps the Navy band?) and seeing a low note approaching that he knew his instrument could not hit.  When the note arrived, he sang it (I can hear his rich basso voice) and moved on.  He got the position.  Years later as a very young marching band student, I was lining up for the parade route when he noticed my red socks.  I had proudly chosen them, thinking they coordinated well with the uniform.  I learned about regulation uniforms when, after an exasperated sigh, he traded his darker socks for mine – explaining that the judges might deduct less points than if they saw them on me.

I look back at band as the great melting pot of grade school, junior high, and high school.  It was the class that saved my life and sanity all through school.  During years when I felt out of place everywhere, I "belonged" in band.  All of us:  "soshes", jocks, brains, nerds, the quiet, the unseen, the unclean, all the castes of our adolescent society – we became one and we all "belonged" in band.

I was never the strongest or most talented player, and I should have practiced way more than I did.  But I know that I looked forward to band every day, and the time passed way too quickly.  I started out at 11 years old on trombone; after an initial mild double-take ("You want to play trombone?") he became my musical mentor for life. 

There are always things we wish someone had done, or not done – I wish he had encouraged me to continue music in college; and I wish he had not praised Sandra King's talent in a twist when I initially thought he was talking about mine (Sandy, do you know how much he admired your playing?)  I waited three years with the hope of being first trombone my senior year, and was disappointed to not be chosen. I learned to overcome disappointment, to always keep playing, and that every player is integral to the group.  He recognized that plodding determination when, much to my surprise, he called my name as the Eva Walden music award recipient.  And I thought he was talking about Sandy in his lead up to the award.

The gifts he gave me will never end. He started a jazz band when I was in high school.  I never heard this music in my home and I never quite "got" it.  But he kept letting me play.  Thirty years later I was playing trumpet in a jazz band that performed in local venues, and I was "getting" it and loving it.  I continue to play in the local community band.

I've just agreed to play in a Veterans' Day parade, and that reminded me of a Veterans' Day at the Santa Paula cemetery, playing "My Buddy" and seeing grown men weep as they listened.  I was learning the power of music, but I had no idea what that song meant to Mr. Roina until reading Jannette's article.  He was the kind of man and teacher whose death inspires tears from former students 51 years after their first lesson.

As I read the obituary and the many comments from former students, I remembered he was also an art teacher, but I was stunned by the depth and breadth of his talent, of his life before Santa Paula.  There was also mention of the church we both attended.  I recalled how I dreaded Lent – first because it was Lent, but especially because Mr. Roina would give up his pipe.  Oh, those were dark days.  I don't know if all the broken batons happened during Lent, but I remember we could all breathe easier after those 40 days of edginess. 

He did change my life.  He taught me to play and to appreciate music, one of the passions of my life.  He provided a safe, challenging, exciting place to be every day.  

He allowed this painfully shy person to interact with classmates I otherwise would never have known.  I'm astounded to think I got up in front of all my peer musicians and earned my SP letter for conducting.  Only through his teaching, guidance, and support were so many things possible for me then, and now.

When my brother Joe died in 2001, I was back in Santa Paula at my mother's home, waiting for the funeral.  I knew I needed something to ease the grief and the waiting, and I went up the hill to the high school.  There, in a band room new to me, Ed and Barbara Roina greeted me warmly and offered condolences.  Then Mr. Roina rummaged around in the back, found an ancient trumpet, and invited me to sit in for practice.  The bewildered trumpet players couldn't know what that meant to me, but Mr. Roina certainly knew the power of music in the face of grief.  

So when I heard of his death, I turned to music, and listened through the Fauré Requiem.  Surely Mr. Roina was familiar with those soaring melodies, particularly the movement "In Paradisum", with its text from the Catholic Order of Burial.  Those are the words of farewell I pray for him now:  

"May the angels lead you into paradise . . .

  may the chorus of angels receive you . . .

  may you have eternal rest." 

Thanks, Ed, and Godspeed.

This article was originally published in the Santa Paula Times, October 25, 2013