Mr. Hill's Opus

Back left: Bud Hill, Back Centre: Ron Bond, Back right: Garry Leeson, Extreme Right: Gus ___ Front: Charlie Sullivan

I guess everybody who ever attended school has had one special teacher who stood out from all the others, someone who really affected their lives in a positive way.  I doubt, however, that many could claim that that special person might well have saved their life. There’s an old movie about a wonderful high school music teacher titled Mr. Holland’s Opus.  Richard Dreyfuss plays the part of Mr. Holland but whenever I watch it, and I’ve seen it several times, I always see my old music teacher, Charles Bud Hill, in his place.

Toronto’s Central Technical School was a rough and ready inner city institution that until 1959, the year I started to attend, didn’t have a music program. The word was that they had contemplated starting one for some time but had hesitated because they couldn’t find anyone strong enough to deal with the predominately male, streetwise toughs who formed the better part of the student body.

The first time I encountered Bud, as he insisted everybody, students and faculty alike, call him, he was busy breaking up a brawl in the hallway outside his music room.  I watched with my fellow classmates as he bent over and separated two fist flailing opponents sprawled on the floor, lifted them by the scruffs of their necks, banged their heads together and then sent them on their way. No trips to the office or detentions for him, just instant cursory justice.  We were all impressed; clearly he was the man for the job. There was no messing with the man. He ruled his band rehearsals with an iron hand, beating out time on his music stand with a baton that was more like a thick cudgel and symbolic of the discipline he demanded. We endured his frequent violent outburst when we couldn’t get a tune quite right and the odd swat on the back of our heads gladly because for some strange reason we really admired and respected the guy.

Maybe it was because we knew he was a real working musician who supplemented his meager teaching salary by playing trombone in a Dixie Land Band. I’m not sure that the school managers were all that happy that he was working to all hours at various sleazy joints around the city but for us it just added to his mystique.  He was the personification of “Cool” and it wasn’t long before, if not playing like musicians, we were talking like them. A whole host of new words and phrases had entered our vocabulary. How could you not admire a teacher who called you “Man” and said “fuck” whenever he wanted to.  In fact he was probably the first and maybe the only person to shout the F word out on the hallowed stage of Toronto’s Massey Hall. He had written a beautiful composition he called Overture to Mr. Carter and instead of getting the Toronto Symphony to play it, he trusted it to our high school band. We were understandably very nervous to be performing in front of such a large and august audience and when we screwed up during the first movement of the piece, he slammed his baton down and shouted out at the top of his lungs, “Stop, you fucking idiots!” The acoustics are excellent in the Hall so no one missed his outburst.  He took a moment to regain his composure then smiled at us and turned to the audience and in a more relaxed tone announced “We shall begin again.”  

There was however a down side to our relationship with Bud.  His Svengali-like influence was wont to lure us away from our regular courses of study. Who wanted to endure all those boring academic classes when, with impunity, you could slip down to a welcoming music room anytime you felt like it? I guess we all wanted to be musicians like him. “Money for nothing and the chicks are free!”

Playing my trumpet in one of his bands, to my delight, got me out of serving my time in the school’s mandatory Army Cadet program. I think Bud endured quite a bit of flak from the powers that be for encouraging this sort of exemption to military duty for his students but he felt strongly about the matter and stood his ground.  I don’t see him as being involved in the peace movement at the time but something he later did for me suggests that he had some strong opinions on the matter.

In 1961, during my third year, an awkward set of circumstances developed. In addition to the fact that, other than my music mark, my grades had plummeted to an embarrassing low, my girlfriend at the time informed me that the rabbit had died. It seemed like the time honored tradition of getting out of town was in order. The first thing that came to mind was the Foreign Legion but I was reconciled to the fact that a shotgun wedding might be in the offing and the Legion didn’t accept married men.

I guess I watched too many John Wayne movies; it’s the only reason I can think of that made me decide to join the United States Marines. In any event shortly after receiving the earth shattering news of the impending blessed event I found my eighteen year old self on a bus headed for a recruitment center in Buffalo New York. I arrived late in the evening and my appointment was for the following morning so I spent the night in a cockroach ridden excuse for a hotel in the worst part of town. I didn’t get much sleep; I just lay staring at the naked light bulb that hung from a long strand over my bed thinking that at any moment one of the hookers or Johns who seemed to be conducting a night long sparing match in the hallway might burst into my room.

The next morning, tired and itchy, I made my way over to the recruitment center. I joined about fifty other hopefuls, mostly black and Hispanic, waiting on the street outside the building. When the doors finally swung open we were greeted by a tall manikin of a man in a crisp full dress Marine uniform:  light blue trousers with a narrow red stripe, a navy colored box necked tunic with red piping and polished brass buttons, a wide white belt with an honest to goodness real sword and it was all topped with a white cap with an impossibly shiny black visor. My God, he looked good towering over us.  I was sold and found myself humming the Marine hymn as we followed him through the entrance and down a long dark hall. We wrote short multiple choice tests in a room full of school desks but from then on it was off with the clothes to be poked, prodded and made to cough by a series of guys in white coats.  Later in the day while standing in a vast circle of multicolored naked bodies, each of us holding a glass with our urine sample in it, some smart ass proposed a toast.

I was only back home a few days when I received my letter of acceptance. Because I was Canadian it was required that I return to the States and swear an oath of allegiance. This I did forthwith and two weeks later I was notified that I would be going to Parris Island, South Carolina, for basic training. My bags were packed and I was ready to go when I remembered that I had left a few important items in my locker at school. I decided to head over and pick them up before heading over to the bus terminal. I thought I was being sufficiently discrete as I slipped down the hallway. Classes were in session and I hoped no one would notice me. My locker was situated in the hall next to the music room. I had just retrieved my things and was closing the locker door when I turned around to see Bud emerging from the music room. As soon as he recognized me he almost flew in my direction and pinned me against the locker. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” he spat in my face.  Thinking he was referring to my infraction of the “No access to lockers during class rule” I quickly answered “Just getting my stuff.” “Never mind your fucking stuff, you dolt. What’s this I hear about you joining the Marines?” Obviously my blabber mouth friend, Ron, albeit with the best intentions, had ratted me out. What ensued was an hour long lecture that commenced with the question. “Have you ever heard of a place called Vietnam?” He regaled me with information about the horrors of what was going on over there and what a hopeless cause it was - finishing with, “If you hadn’t been so busy in the backseat of your parent’s car lately, you might have read a paper or listened to the news and already know this.”  Apparently my friend Ron had felt that a full and complete disclosure of my situation had been in order.

I didn’t reply. I just slipped away pondering what he had said. I knew he was right. The TV news was full of clips of the young men of America marching down city streets chanting “Hell no, we won’t go!” and here I was foolishly offering myself as a lamb for the slaughter.

So I didn’t report to Parris Island. I didn’t get sent to Vietnam. I didn’t die face down in a stinking rice paddy and get my name etched on the somber sunken black memorial wall in Washington. Who’s to say what might really have happened? Maybe I would have simply lost a limb or two and ended up in a substandard veteran’s ward; or become a dope addict; or suffered the indignity of returning home to a country who couldn’t give a damn.  Thanks to Bud Hill, none of these things were allowed to happen and at the ripe old age of seventy I am alive and still playing my trumpet and singing with a swing band.  He could be vulgar and profane and was no Mr. Chips but I sure held, and still hold, him in the highest regard. He gave me the gift of music and far, far more.