Unrequested care
I went to a high school that had a reasonably decent music program. Teachers that cared and an inventory of equipment that even today makes me feel that we had hit a jack pot of sorts. Go ahead. Check on the price of a student trumpet or a student tuba. Still a great deal of money. Anyhow the musical instruments were a shared resource. You did not have your tuba you had access to a tuba. Or a flute or clarinet or what have you. Because these were a shared resource we took care of them. We treated them as if we had paid the price without ever knowing the price. Tricky economics for a 15 year old. At one point on a broadcast on television, a famous trumpet player had appeared with his instrument that had the bell pointed upwards. By Monday morning one of our students had figured out that this would turn him into a great performer. Take it from me the trumpet did not fit back into the carrying case. On another weekend a student decided that his tuba looked a little dirty. And so he did what any 15 year old boy would do. He filled the tub with hot soapy water and took the tuba in for a quick rinse. In those days instruments recovered in a lacquer that made them look better than they sounded. The hot water was not kind to that lacquer. There is no way to hide what you have done when you return to school and your tuba looks like it has developed a camouflage pattern. I really wish I had a photograph because it was timeless. So much so that the music department did not try to have any repair done. The tuba stayed there for years as a reminder to anyone else that some things are best not done. And that includes washing your brass instrument in hot soapy water.
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