In high school as a sophomore I was involved in jazz choir. Our school hadn’t won an award in competition in over ten years.

One of the songs was a solo, sung by me. We made it to finals. I asked the teacher if we could use my solo in the competition, he barked, no!! You were singing sharp!! I said, no it wasn’t! So he plugged in the cassette, rewound and had a listen, agreeing he was in error, it was right in tune, so we used it in the final round.

We wound up taking first place trophy. I was not permitted to go up for the trophy with others because I was not senior.

Folks like this … they were always around to make certain I never thought too highly of myself.

May he someday understand what he contributed to …