Generic greeting. Enduring Strings was the first project I accepted from SYSO. Back when I was just a civilian I began attending SYSO board meetings as a guest, an interested party. Little did I know. One day at a board member’s home, I was given an alarm clock and the job of the Enduring Strings program. The program has the name it has because Crete used to have an orchestra program in the schools-I first held a cello in my own two hands because Bob Slider and Wilfred Hureau were recruiting for the orchestra program here in District 201-U-and members of our board decided it should have one again. So they started one to demonstrate that it could still be done here. And we did endure. And there will be a new string program again in our district.
I’ve known some of these kids since before the pandemic. Somewhere out there is forlorn video of me missing them and talking (stupidly) hopeful talk to them. Because we are a before-school program, I’m not quite the ogre I usually am because I know they’re facing plenty once they head off to school. We’re generally nice to one another. The ones moving up and out of Enduring Strings will be greatly missed by yours truly, but by October I and they will both be on to other good works, and I trust that they will all do well.
Peace,
DEF