Sally told us the story she couldn’t bring herself to tell us over the phone from New York. Apparently on the bus trip into the parade site she allowed her clarinet to fall beak down, breaking the expensive mouthpiece we had purchased for her. She asked everybody on the bus if they had a spare, nobody did, but one of the girls on the other buses saved the day.

What’s interesting about this story is her account of how she at first plunged into despair and hysteria at the thought that all her hard practice would be for nought, and that she would be marching in the parade pretending, and how she mastered these feelings (before finding the replacement) because she realized it was important to enjoy and value the experience and not let it be ruined by this tragedy. A true McCallum, that girl.

It was also touching to hear her excitement and appreciation of the Metropolitan Museum, particularly her thrill at discovering the Sargent we have have a print of over our bed. She dragged her companion back to see this at the last minute. The voyage was really like a mini-Odyssey for her, through the social perils and intellectual thrills of adolescence. Like all our children, she continues to amaze and delight us.

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