CHAPTER FIFTY NINE: MUSIC FOR THE SOUL, CPR FOR THE HEART

CHAPTER FIFTY NINE: MUSIC FOR THE SOUL, CPR FOR THE HEART

Here’s a little known fact: Ft. Myers is the classical music center of the world. Well, at least it was this past Friday night, when “Curtis on Tour” stopped at the Sidney and Berne Davis Arts Center in Oldtown Ft. Myers. For almost two hours, the President of Curtis Institute of Music and an award winning violist, Roberto Diaz, a 1994 graduate and virtuoso violinist, Steven Copes, and a current Curtis student, Tessa Seymour, cellist protégé (she played at Carnegie Hall in 2007), took me and the rest of the audience soaring through pieces by Schubert, Dohnanyi, and Beethoven. I didn’t even know that Beethoven had written any pieces for trios. Turns out that he did not write very many, but his Opus 3 (Trio in E flat major) was a good closing piece. I especially liked the slow, romantic movement. The only reminder of the “real world” was the extremely loud sound of motorcycle engines roaring down First Street near the end of Beethoven. Apparently, there was a “Hog” convention nearby. Pity.

The Dohnanyi piece was the stunner of the three compositions. I had never heard of this composer. Mr. Diaz gave us a short introduction to him and to this work, which starts with a march and ends with the same march. But that doesn’t begin to capture the essence of the piece. It was the Serenade in C major for string trio, Opus 10, composed in 1902. Erno Dohnanyi, who preferred being called Ernst Dohnanyi, was Hungarian by birth. In his time he was probably as famous as Bela Bartok, who is now much more well known. When young, they both attended the Budapest Academy of Music, apparently at the same time. Dohnanyi spent his last years teaching at Florida State University, and in 1960 when he went to New York to record some of his piano compositions – he was a great concert pianist – he caught pneumonia and died. Dohnanyi was controversial in Hungary for years for political reasons, which are unclear to me. He aided Jewish musicians during the Second World War. One of his sons was executed for being part of a 1944 conspiracy to kill Hitler. The other was killed in combat. Dohnanyi the Elder left Hungary after the war after a “whisper campaign” (Wikipedia) was started against him by the post-war communist government of Hungary. He fled to Argentina, Mexico and finally came to the United States.

Anyway, what you need to know about Dohnanyi is that he loved Brahms, Schubert and Beethoven, and his music reflects that love. He was not an imitator, however. As a renowned concert pianist he played Beethoven all around Europe. He does not have a huge discography. And so, you are not likely to hear his music, unless a group of dedicated musicians like the trio from Curtis treat you to one of his compositions. I don’t think, for example, that he had anything to do with any of the football fight songs for Florida State University. One of the very cool things about traveling around the country is being able to visit places like the Edison Ford Winter Estates and listen to the music of Ernst Dohnanyi – two more firsts for me. I had no idea what to expect in Ft. Myers, except the Admiral told me that the Edison Ford as a place worth spending hours at. And he was right. The longer we stay at a place, the more opportunities I look for. This past week, I was missing music, especially classical music. And voila! The Curtis Trio came to town and quenched my thirst for at least an evening. The venue was spectacular -- an old post office turned courthouse turned art museum with high ceilings, a huge disco ball, super polished floors so you could see the musicians right side up and upside down, and a front row seat, just three seats away from Ms. Berne Davis herself, the benefactor of this Art Center. Picture her in her concert black dress and jewels, and picture me in my dark blue jeans and scuffed topsiders. But that’s beside the point – the music was the point. And it was marvelous. If you ever get a chance to go to a Curtis on Tour concert (for twenty bucks), Do It!

Another opportunity I took advantage of was a three hour CPR class for friends and family at a local church. This was the bomb! The three instructors were super – two EMTs and a firefighter. It was not a class which earned you certification, but it was a hands-on class that everyone needs to take, at least once, if you have never been taught CPR or the abdominal thrust maneuver (for choking). You can actually save lives with what we were taught from 1 to 4 p.m. today. A lot has changed in the CPR world in just the past three years, according to my instructors. Studies showed that compression was the most important part of CPR, and therefore, anyone administering CPR should start with compressions, 30 of them (to the beat of the BeeGees “Staying Alive”). Then you proceed to ventilation, or mouth to mouth resuscitation (2 breaths). So you administer 30 compressions, then breathe twice into the unresponsive person, then go back to 30 compressions, followed by two breaths. Got it? Two hands for adults (age 9 to infinity), one hand (palm of hand) for children (1 to 8) and two fingers for infants (under age 1). Count out loud; it’s the only way you’re going to remember when you get to thirty. I can tell you this, but if you haven’t taken a CPR course, please do for your own peace of mind. This is one of those learning experiences I always wanted to take while working, but never found the time. Ah, the joys of retirement! I finally found the time to learn how to save a life. And that abdominal thrust movement for choking? Yep, it used to be called the Heimlich maneuver, but the royalty demands of the Heimlich family led the Heart Association and other life-saving groups to drop the family name and go with “abdominal thrust”. Works for me.

We don’t know how long we’ll stay in Ft. Myers. We are scheduled to leave February 14, a day that ostensibly has no meaning whatsoever for the Admiral. But since every day with him is special in its own way, I can’t say I really miss the roses or the chocolates or whatever else the merchants want us to buy each other on Valentine’s Day. Back to when we leave Ft. Myers – our month at Legacy Harbour is up on the 14^th, and we have reserved a slip at a marina on Marco Island, our first stop on the way to Key West. The problem is this: The route to Key West is almost all open water, not a protected waterway, and the open water is rather shallow. This means that any wind will kick up large waves that are close together and make for a very rough passage. The winds on the 14th are okay, but the winds on the 15^th and 16^th, when we are supposed to be heading from Marco Island to Key West, are supposed to be 20 knots – too much for Slow Motion to make safe passage. So we may have to spend another week in Ft. Myers, until we get a window of at least 3 days of calm seas to travel about 100 miles to Key West. The irony of having to wait is that last week, the seas were calm for 4 days straight. But we didn’t leave early because we’re in the midst of getting our generator repaired. The last part, the heat exchanger, just arrived Friday, and it has to be installed this coming week. So when we’re finally shipshape again, that’s when the winds start blowing. That’s what I mean about being so dependent on the weather when you’re cruising. We could drive to Key West, no sweat. But we just can’t safely get Slow Motion to Key West in 20 knot winds.

Here is a reminder: If you come to Florida call me or the Admiral. We’ll be here or in the Bahamas, just 50 miles away, for the next few months. We would love to see you. We missed out on a visit with a good friend, who was in Naples for at least a week. Naples is really close to Ft. Myers. I learned that she was in Naples, as she was heading for the airport to head back to Oregon. I’m gnashing my teeth over that missed opportunity. And really, this is the place to be in February and March, even April, if you can stand warm weather day in and day out. Sure, there are a lot of “old people” who have retired to Florida and are driving the retirement Cadillac. There are also the sunbirds, tons of them from Canada on Florida’s West Coast. You can categorize and classify Floridians and look down your noses at them because they’re old or retired or sun seekers. You can do that, but that would be wrong. That would keep you from meeting people who have had the most interesting lives, so far, and intend to keep their lives interesting. So leave the stereotypes at home and come to visit us in Florida, because it’s beautiful, it’s warm and – when was the last time you had a chance to cruise on a 50 foot boat, try your hand at catching a big fish, or soak up the sunshine in the winter? The only thing that would make this entire experience better for me and the Admiral would be visits from our friends and family. So if you’re reading this, pack a suitcase, head to the airport and call us to let us know you’re on your way.