Goose Call

My mother’s high school clarinet. It’s going on sixteen years since my mother passed, so there’s been ample time to adjust to her absence. That said, she made herself pretty hard to forget, so it’s a good thing I enjoy remembering. Big laugh. Talkative. Landed on her heels when she walked. You generally knew she was around, because you could hear her. When I was young she would tap rhythmic figures on the edge her rocking chair and have me repeat them back to teach me the patterns. She played florid chord progressions on the electric organ, and occasionally pulled out her old marching band instrument to see if she still had it. On another topic, my dad has always had an enthusiasm for birds. I have a funny memory of him trying to attract Canada geese to the yard using this clarinet. Anyway, here are some images of my noisy mother’s noisemaker.