This is a video from my FlipFone (remember those?) of the Saucy Stenographers — my son’s band in 2011. Their name is from a fabulous novel called “Ella Minnow Pea.” My son wrote music, lyrics and is on keyboard. The singer is the granddaughter of a prominent Palm Springs mid century architect with the last name Wexler. My husband’s office building he used to work in was built by this architect. The show was in a club downtown Palm Springs. We weren’t very supportive of the band. We were swim parents. Why was our son missing swim practice for band practice?

Both of my parents were musicians of some sort. My earliest memories of my mom in our tiny home in Snohomish, Washington were of piano students coming in after school for their 30-minute lessons. My dad played saxophone and clarinet in high school which my brother took up. Mom played piano and flute. I took piano but dropped it for flute.

Mom was a coloratura soprano and had a gorgeous voice. I had the best lullabies sung to me every night. I went to rehearsals for Mom’s roles with the Seattle Opera Company and as the star at the Seattle Playhouse as Little Red Riding Hood. The play had three actors. Grandma, the Wolf and Little Red. Mom sewed me a matching costume to hers which I wore to every rehearsal and performance. I was around four or five years old.

Our son loved piano while our daughter did not, to put it mildly. She loved swimming. I put her in ballet, which I loved, and she thought it was a weird form of punishment to wear leotards and tights in the hot desert heat. She preferred a swim suit and being in the water.

Here’s my son playing piano at his senior recital.

He was a theoretical math major doubling in music his freshman year of college. Then he fell off his bicycle and had an injury to his hand that stopped his piano and music degree. He continued with math until he met the love of his life who was a Literature major in the College of Creative Studies at UCSB. Our son switched majors to be with her. He didn’t want to spend another year trying to prove the existence of zero. We worried with his choice to switch from Math to Lit that it would be harder to find a job. It all worked out. They are married and he found a job where he uses his Math and English skills.

Here’s one more of my son’s high school’s band songs he wrote lyrics and music to. This one’s called Second Hand and has that teen angsty feel to it. The lines about sick for weeks and sucked under the waves refer to RSV as an infant. He was plagued with severe asthma, sinus infections and illness growing up. Desert Nights, which I posted first, is my favorite song of the Saucy Stenographers by the way. The band ended when the members went east and west for college.

Did you have musical parents or family members? What instruments did they play?