Musings on the Coast

The Music Teacher

I grew up with music. My father could play by ear, fluently, both hands flashing, the piano soaring.   I play, too, albeit not by ear and with less skill. It does not matter. I love it.

When the time came, I wanted my kids to be taught, so we found Verla Cole. She was snake skinny, looked like the missing member of the Rolling Stones (though her hero was Elvis), jaggedly elegant, spiky white blonde hair, her silhouette an arrogant apostrophe—and always in severe tight black clothes and stark white shirts. In her younger days, she had been a dancer, a performer, but she blew out her knee and became a teacher.

She was mean as hell to the kids, never went in for that “thank you for thanking me” nonsense. My children did not enjoy being with her; she yelled at them and made them cry. My two daughters dropped out, but she ignited a passion within my son Harrison, who today at 19 can play almost any instrument and will have the gift forever. He learned Gershwin’s “Rhapsody In Blue,” a really difficult piece; he learned Debussy’s “Clair de Lune.” He kept growing. Today, when he comes home from college he heads straight for the piano.

Verla did not force the kids to learn scales, do finger exercises or the like. She had a different angle; she taught to a recital. There were two a year, one in June and one at Christmas. Each kid, with her help, picked out a song and in learning it, learned music.

She did not care what you played. She could teach any instrument. Or you could sing. You picked out your song and then you practiced until suddenly you were at the recital in front of other kids and their parents. After much hassle from Verla, I finally took lessons, too, and was one of the few parents who played at the recitals. I can tell you I was always terrified. My hands shook, my fingers turned to stone, but when I was done, I always had a big smile. I loved her for pushing me into it.

A few weeks ago, Verla’s heart stopped and she died alone in her tiny apartment in west Newport. Her only relatives live in Kansas, so some of the recital mothers went over to help clean out her place. Here is what one, Kim Bowen (whose kids practice on my piano), posted on Facebook:

“Verla left behind a mountain of things. A mountain. She loved clothes. I sorted through, God knows, at least 70 boxes. Hundreds of shoes all carefully packed and stored in plastic-loved things. Each item was a testament to this woman none of us really knew. She would arrive for practice at Michael’s house, and was stern and formal, Mr. Ray, she always said, never Michael.

“Today was a meditation, working and sorting and packing and heaving and watching a tiny hummingbird, whose breast was red feathers shining like metal, swooping down again and again. I felt Verla herself was remonstrating with me. “Keep things tidy.”

“I tried to find meaning in all of Verla’s stuff. So personal to her, and so much of it so lovely. All that chaos, I could hear her groaning that we found out she had all this stuff, and yet to us, as our lives interconnected she seemed so spare, so self-contained. You would be in a room with her and then she’d be gone, fast as that hummingbird.”

For me, I am a bit lost. My lessons with Verla always were about the beauty of the music. She would make me try out different versions of the same stanza and pick the one I liked most. She kept saying, “Mr. Ray, it is about what you like.” My last song is the slow version of “Breaking Up Is Hard To Do.”   We were about one third through it, Verla insisting I hit four C notes and three chords straight up because it sounded right for my style.

She does not have enough money for a proper burial, or even for the morgue, but her “stuff” is so crazy wonderful collectors will want it. Kim and another mother, Teddie Ray, have taken over an empty store in CdM next to the Port Theater, and are selling it there. I looked and am buying a bizarre red-velvet day bed. Check it out. The stuff is magnificently delightful. The proceeds will pay the debts.

So that’s that. Verla Cole, 67, Missouri born and bred, a rebel who never could be held to the time and era of what a girl or a woman should be, is gone.   She entered stage left, was irascible and utterly unique, and exited stage right, quickly and with a dancer’s flourish like a hummingbird in full bright red regalia.

I find myself strangely jealous. Damn.

Michael Ray grew up in Corona del Mar and now lives in Laguna Beach.  He makes a living as a real estate entrepreneur and is involved in many non-profits.