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compromised his cool-man, jeans-clad, cigs-rolled-in-the-T-sleeve persona. The trumpet was his instrument of expression and he spent endless hours nestled next to their wooden-cased Motorola radio, devouring jazz and classical music, aspiring to one day join a symphony, or tour with big band leaders like Stan Kenton or Billy May.
    My parents were high school sweethearts—an unlikely match since my mother was the perfect student, cheerleader, yearbook editor, and school actress and my father was James Dean with a trumpet. They married during his junior year of college and three years later, when I was born, my father gained employment as high school band director in Sand Springs. There would be no symphony or big band tour or New York or Hollywood. But it was an accessible, responsible career in the field of his passion. And my mother was determined to be the caretaker she never had.
    By the time I was a toddler, my dad had become somewhat famous in the tristate area for his marching band style, which incorporated a heart-stopping goose step that brought the crowds to their feet. During the orchestral season of the school year, he conducted concerts on the auditorium stage and, as if a great sorcerer, when he tapped his baton on the metal stand, magic would ensue. I was awash in sound—dramatic and elegant and exquisite—and I watched the back of his head and shoulders rise and release as he waved his arms in a powerful and fervent dance. This was his element, his symphony.
    My father brought the love of music to my life. To the lives of many. He was the go-to guy for students and parents alike, the favorite teacher, the giver of advice, the shoulder to cry on, and a source of encouragement. But he was all used up by the time he got to us.
    During the rare daylight hours that he was home, my father’s moods would swing, alternately and without notice, from playful to fractious. Peripherally glimpsing his hand coming toward me could mean a tussle of the hair or a pop on the head with his ring finger, seemingly without provocation or warning. I mostly saw him on weekends, when he would mutely seclude himself with a ball game on television, prompting my mother to beg thousands of times, “Go be with your father.” “Be with your father” meant sit in the same room with him in the dark for twenty minutes while he sat glued to the Cardinals or the Cowboys. My presence was seldom acknowledged and I exited as unnoticed as I entered.
    My father was, and is, a good man with a giant if not articulate heart, and we have since developed a strong relationship; but during those years he was driven and career-focused and his best was reserved for others. Mothers were for raising children.
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    I remember being three—sitting, spinning, waiting on a tall stool at nursery school, the last child to be picked up. I clutched a collection of heart-shaped, crayoned Valentine’s Day cards with anticipation. Today was a big day. My dad was taking me to see the movie Mary Poppins. Just me and Daddy, father and son. My teacher was as eager for me to leave as I. She was a billowy woman with a mountain of dreary, unfriendly hair that exploded from a priggish bun to a demented puff of white by the end of each school day. Like Santa Claus upside down. My father arrived and she pressed a box of SweeTarts into my fist and nearly shoved us out the door.
    We sat on the far left side of the theater in the haze of the smoking section and my father constructed a hump from our coats to prop me up for a better view. He went to the lobby and returned a few minutes later, juggling popcorn and Milk Duds and pop, a cigarette dangling from the corner of his mouth and a trail of smoke stinging his squinted left eye. It was a grand day indeed. I was grateful we’d arrived before the movie started. It was customary for my family to choose a “show,” and just go to the theater with no idea