Yeller Dog 2 blog 6

After the last note escaped from the bell of the horn, I lowered my trombone down to my side. I just stood in that spot completely still letting the echo of the note wash over me; I had done it. I had played the best I had ever or will ever play and I knew Uncle Hack had been with me. After looking around at the faces staring at me, I remembered I had to sit back down so the funeral could continue. I held my trombone so tight that my knuckles were white and my hands shook. I was filled with a queer mix of pride and sorrow. The man who had given me this magnificent trombone was being buried in the cold, hard ground on an even colder day. His name was and is Edwin “Hack” Crouse, but everyone called him Hack; to my cousins, my siblings, and I, he was always Uncle Hack. After sitting back down, I saw that my mother and my grandmother had tears streaking down their face. They told me I had done beautifully and that they were proud, my sisters rubbed my back in approval, and that’s when I finally cried. I cried the rest of the burial, but it was an odd mix of happiness, sorrow and pride. All these feelings had me thinking back to when I had first seen and held this beautiful trombone.
I remember the first time I ever laid my hands and eyes on the trombone. I was getting ready to start fifth grade band and I had been desperate for an instrument that mom and dad could afford. I had the choice between a flute or a trombone. I was a big tom-girl and I didn’t want a girly instrument like a flute, so I went with the trombone. Uncle Hack had a trombone from when he played in Chicago with a jazz band. Grandma Coleman took me to Uncle Hack’s to see if he would let me have his trombone. Hack seemed ecstatic to have someone want to play an instrument he had fallen in love with decades before. He was sitting down to at his kitchen table wearing a grey Green Bay Packers sweatshirt that he always wore when it was cool outside. The poor man had diabetes, liver problems from his prior alcoholism, and suffering from some Alzheimer’s. I sat down across from him at the table and we sat in a comfortable silence while Grandma went into his bedroom closet to get the trombone for me to take home. When Grandma brought it out, I could’ve died with embarrassment at the thought of playing such a thing. It was in a hard black case that had been covered in gold lettering that had started to peel off from age and neglect, the letters spelled out Yeller Dog 2, South Side Chicago, and Hack Crouse on the top and sides of the case. The case was also covered with all sorts of knick knacks: a little plaque on the left side saying “Old sailors never die, they just get a little Dinghy;” a sand dollar on the right side that was now yellow instead of white; a small gold turtle on the left; and the crest of the marines shining brightly on the right side. It was the oddest and oldest thing I had ever seen. I started thinking of how embarrassing it would be to walk in with this trombone case and now I wasn’t even sure I wanted to play the trombone. I looked at Uncle Hack and I could see he was beaming with pride and excitement over the old trombone. I had to smile in spite of myself; I hadn’t seen him so happy since Aunt Jenny died and I didn’t want to ruin that moment. I opened up the case and the smile on my face was no longer artificial. I had fallen in love with this shining piece of brass before me. I opened up the straps that were holding down the pieces and fumbled through putting it together. After I put it together I stared at the master piece in front of me. I found the latch on the slide and tried to move it; it made a horrid kind of grinding sound; so I put the slide back into position and latched it. I started looking at everything else on the trombone. There were dents on the slide down at the bottom and dents on the bell of the trombone, but the dents didn’t hinder its beauty. At the tuning slide I saw a crest of sorts. Uncle hack had put the marine crest on one side and a crest with two skeleton keys with crowns on the head of each key and the keys were crossing on the other side. Then I saw it, Yeller Dog 2, a label that had been stickered onto the side of the trombone’s bell. I remember looking at that sticker and then looking at Uncle Hack, “Uncle Hack, what does Yeller Dog 2 mean?” After I asked he smiled and his eyes light up with an inner fire. He told me about when he was playing up in Chicago in an old jazz band. He had been warming up his instrument and all of a sudden the trombone made a weird sound. One of the men in the band told him it sounded like an old yeller dog. From then on, his trombone was called yeller dog. When yeller dog had finally broken down and he had to get a new one, he named his new one yeller dog 2. He was so proud of his instrument that it rubbed off onto me. We sat down the rest of the visit just talking about his life with the trombone. I knew then and there that he would always have a special place in his life for me.
At the funeral I had played “Anchor’s Aweigh,” and I had put in a glissando just for him. He had been a merchant marine in World War II, Korea, and some of Vietnam. He would never tell me any of the war stories because I was a girl; and the era he grew up in, it was best for women in general not to know the details of the wars. It was weird to know that Uncle Hack would no longer be around. Before he had died he had been put into a nursing home because he needed around the clock care. He didn’t really remember anyone anymore. He did have good days when he did remember everyone, but they were becoming few. A few weeks before he died my mother had woken him up from a nap for a visit and he told her that he couldn’t talk to her long because he was in a meeting with God and Jesus. Even though his memory was fleeting he always asked my mother if I still had his trombone and if I was playing it. I was always remembered because of that trombone and that made me special to him. I loved this man greatly and I still have the trombone. I am saving it for my children so that one of them might play it later in school and enjoy its memory as much as I have.