I was ten years old when the time came to choose a band instrument. I knew that my mother had played the cornet and that there was a cornet in the cabinet above the piano, but I thought of the piano as mother’s instrument. Nonetheless, I was pleased when she took it down, cleaned it up a bit, oiled the valves, and taught me how to buzz into the mouthpiece. I could make a really loud sound with that cornet. But it was old and the finish was a bit dull and I wanted something new. At the band instrument evening, when a music store from eighty miles away from our town came and showed instruments, my eyes immediately went to a shiny new trumpet. Whereas my mother’s horn was silver and needed to be polished, there was a shiny, lacquered brass trumpet. Even the mouthpiece was longer and seemed to be more modern than the one that came with the old cornet.

The music store had all kinds of plans. They rented instruments. They had rent-to-own plans. But my father was not one for monthly payments. I already knew what he would say: “If you don’t have the money to buy it outright, you can’t afford it.” And I couldn’t imagine how I could get the price of that new trumpet. Wonder of wonders, surprise of surprises, however, we came home from that evening instrument show with the trumpet. It came with a case lined with velvet. My first lesson, before I took the horn to band practice was a strict lesson in caring for the horn. I was told how easily it could become dented.

There were at least nine trumpets in our fifth and sixth grade band. I started out at the end of the row, but I discovered that I had an advantage over some of my classmates. Five years of piano lessons meant I could already read music and the music for the trumpet part in grade school band was very simple compared to the piano music I was already playing. I also learned that if I practiced my trumpet every day I would be allowed to drop out of piano lessons, which at the time seemed like a really good deal to me. I advanced to the first trumpet part within a few weeks, challenging sixth graders and winning the challenges. I didn’t make first chair that first year but it was within sight. For the next six years I traded first and second chairs with another trumpet player in our town and I was given my share of solo parts. I saved my money and bought sheet music, mostly simplified versions of the music of Herb Alpert.

In the spring of my eighth grade, I was asked to play taps with another trumpet player at our community’s Memorial Day parade. We played three times that morning: once in front of the Legion Hall, once at a bridge over the river as a wreath was thrown into the water, and once at the cemetery where white markers indicated the graves of those who had served. After that, I was invited to play taps for committal services from time to time. By the time I got to high school, those funerals became a mix of old men, who have served in wars long ago and a few young men who came home from Vietnam in caskets. When I was a junior I played for a young man who was only two years older than I. It was a sobering moment as I held the final note for as along as my breath would last and stood trembling as I held my horn and the sound echoed off of the hills.

In high school, my parents encouraged my playing by allowing me to take private lessons from a college professor and symphony trumpet player in a town sixty miles from our home. Each week I was allowed to take the family car over the pass for my lessons. All winter long I returned in the dark. I not only learned a lot about playing the trumpet, but also a lot about how to drive a car in the mountains. After a year of no accidents and only one speeding ticket, with the consultation of my trumpet teacher, I purchased a new trumpet. It was silver and shiny and featured a bigger bore than my previous instrument, for which I was allowed some trade-in value despite a couple of dents.

In college I learned that I my trumpet wasn’t the best of the best. It was a good collegiate instrument, but there were students who owned more expensive and fancier instruments. I admired them, but I loved my trumpet and it served me well. It has been more than 56 years since I bought that instrument and I still have it and play it.

However, there is more to the story. Twenty or more years ago, I was working with the mother of a young man who died from suicide. As she processed the grief of her traumatic loss it fell to her to dispose of his personal property. Among the items he owned was a beautiful trumpet - one of the best manufactured. She asked me if I would help her sell it. I wanted that trumpet, but professional ethics prevented me from any appearance of taking advantage of someone in their grief. Instead, I found a high school student with talent enough to deserve the instrument and put the mother in touch with his parents. They negotiated a price and the instrument was sold. I heard it played from time to time and continued to play my high school instrument.

Then one day after he had graduated from high school, gotten married and was establishing his career the young man called and told me he wanted to sell the trumpet. I asked around in search of another high school student worthy of the instrument. In the meantime, I paid slightly more than market value for the instrument, intending to resell it when I found the right student. I couldn’t do it. I fell in love with it. It is sitting in its case between my desk and my music stand as I write.

And now I own three horns. An antique silver cornet, a big bore trumpet from the 1960s and this beautiful instrument. No man my age needs three horns. I don’t play enough to justify such luxury, but I am emotionally attached to all three. I may be nurturing a problem that my family will one day have to solve.