Two music teachers helped me find my voice

Russ Cuthbert was back in town last weekend with big news. He had found Tom Scanlin.

Mystery solved. It’s not clear to me how, but Russ had an email address for Mr. Scanlin, who taught music during our years at Coquillard Junior High School. We last saw him 50-some years ago.

For people my age, it can be difficult to name a teacher who changed your perspective on life. Our school days were during the Sixties. The Youth Movement warned us then to never trust anyone over the age of 30. Pete Townshend and the Who were wailing, “I hope I die before I get old.”

I’m fortunate. I can name two major influences, and both happened to be music teachers.

At LaSalle High School, I was in the Glee Club for three years. I had just an average voice, but I learned to sing loud enough that folks in the back of the auditorium could hear me, if necessary. But what I really learned in Glee Club class was about civil rights.

We Bradfords grew up in German Township. I had never met or spoken with an actual Black person until I started seventh grade at Coquillard. And even there, I can’t recall having a conversation with a Black classmate.

We lived in turbulent times then. South Bend, like many cities, had an undercurrent of injustice and unrest. As a result, we had major race riots in parts of town I had never seen. 

LaSalle’s Glee Club teacher, John Vogel, knew how isolated many of us were. He made sure we all sang “We Shall Overcome,” the civil rights anthem, totally aware that our neighbors and perhaps our parents weren’t sure that this was the direction we should go. 

We also sang old-time Black spirituals. Occasionally, Mr. Vogel would explain the importance of certain phrases. When slaves sang about “crossing the River Jordan,” for example, it sounded biblical but it also was a code for crossing the Ohio River into states where men, women and children could live free.

And when we sang it in the Sixties, it was about crossing other lines – for education opportunities, jobs and housing – so all people could truly be equal.

It was a hugely important lesson for me then, and I’m grateful for reminders. There is a cosmos of difference between knowing the words and understanding the terrain.

My story about Mr. Scanlin is similar but different.

In my junior high years, I was awkwardly trying to figure out where I was supposed to belong. I lost touch with my elementary school friends and was adrift. By luck, I met John, a kid whose family moved into a rental house on Adams Road.

Thanks to the Beatles, you didn’t have to be rich, athletic or cute to be popular in the late Sixties. Musicians finally were cool, and no one at Coquillard could sing like John. 

My role was settled early. If John was Paul Simon, I would be Art Garfunkel. If he was Lennon or McCartney, I was Ringo. The Monkees were becoming the new big thing. I was Peter Tork.

He was the cool one and I was a second banana, comic relief. As a fourth son from a farm family, it didn’t seem humiliating when John or others made fun of me.

My memory and imagination tend to jumble, but this is something I remember. One day after music class, Mr. Scanlin asked me to stay late. John was sick with a sore throat and might miss the big eighth-grade concert. We needed someone to step in as the soloist for a song called “My Task.”

As Mr. Scanlin played the piano, I sang the words and hit the notes, but it was totally uninspiring. We could try it again, he said, but first we should talk about the song. “What does it mean?” he asked.

The lyrics were these: To search for truth as blind men long for light/ To do my best from dawn of day till night/ To keep my heart fit for His holy sight/ And answer when He calls/ And answer when He calls/ This is my task.

“He’s singing about his job,” I said. “He has to search for truth, try his hardest.”

“It’s not a job,” I recall Mr. Scanlin saying. “It’s a choice. No one is making him do this. He has chosen to follow this path because he believes in great things.”

I wasn’t getting the difference.

He played the chords and I sang the song, “My Task,” a couple more times, subtly stressing the word “my” each time. Mr. Scanlin and I both were glad when John’s throat got better in time for the concert.

John was John, and I wasn’t.

The school year ended soon after, which meant a summer filled with farm work for my family and me. I spent hours thinking about my life while my hands guided a tractor. When ninth grade started at LaSalle, I found out that John’s family had moved out during the summer, maybe to Iowa. No phone call. No good-bye.

I would be looking for new friends. I could be someone else’s Garfunkel, or they could be mine, but only if I wanted it that way. I had a choice. I’m sure I wasn’t the only teen-ager to get this nudge from Mr. Scanlin, but it sent me in a better direction.

It was not John’s song. Not Mr. Scanlin’s song. Not your song.

My song, my choice, my task.