Today is the first day of Teacher Appreciation Week, which I suppose makes anything I might write about teachers seem a tad self-serving,  After all, I’m a teacher myself. . . and an essay on appreciating good teachers could be interpreted by some as a thinly-veiled effort on my part to score a couple of cards and maybe a box of chocolates before the week is out.  But I’m willing to run the risk, if only because there are just too many compelling reasons to write about good teachers, the incredibly important work they do, and the extraordinarily lasting impact which they can have,  often in ways that neither they nor their students might begin to understand at the time.

The photo above is of a lovely little house in Atlantic, Iowa – my former hometown, to which I returned for a visit back in early April.  I have no idea who lives in this house now,  but back in 1974 when my family first moved to Atlantic, this was the house where my voice teacher, Cherie Carl, lived – along with her good friend and fellow music teacher Cindi Metzger.   This is where I took the very first voice lessons of my life. . .  where I first gained some sense of my potential as a singer. . . where I first realized just how thrilling it could be to dig deep inside of yourself and unleash sounds that you didn’t know you were capable of producing.  I was already a good musician,  having studied piano since the age of four and having played organ from the age of seven.  And I had done plenty of singing, too- including a couple of lead roles in shows plus plenty of singing in both school and church choirs – but without any formal vocal training whatsoever.   When my family moved from Decorah to Atlantic, we were leaving behind a lot of exciting opportunities and resources that you only find in college towns –  so it was amazing serendipity that this little town to which we moved just happened to have living in it an amazing voice teacher.   And this is the house where I first began learning what singing was all about.

More importantly, this was the house where I first began to develop some self-confidence.  I was a skinny, bespectacled 15-year-old . . . shy, awkward, and every shade of “uncool” you could possibly be . . . but thanks to Cherie Carl – and thanks to some of her older, more skilled and assured voice students like Sarah Wolenhaus and Jan Kramer, who were quick with an encouraging word – I began to feel like what I had to offer the world was something truly worthwhile and truly unique.  And it was thanks to those marvelous older singers that I saw all the ways in which I could push myself to become a stronger, more expressive, more confident singer.  Interestingly enough,  I have no recollection of any other guys in Cherie’s voice studio, although maybe there were some, here and there –  but the fine women in her studio were still sterling role models for me.  I can still remember the first time I heard Jan Kramer sing for the first time.  She was two years older than I was – a tall and statuesque young woman with a rich, colorful speaking voice and a fabulous sense of humor.  As she got up to sing at my very first voice class,  she was making all kinds of comments about how awful she was going to sound, that all of us might want to take that opportunity to leave,  that she hoped she wouldn’t make any of us physically ill – (and I thought to myself,  “how bad a singer can she be?”)  And then she opened up her mouth and this marvelous mezzo soprano sound came pouring out of her, like I had never heard in my life!  And in that moment,  I knew that I wanted to do whatever I could to be that same kind of singer – capable of opening my mouth and letting loose a sound that someone else would find that thrilling.

And Cherie is the person who could make that happen with the young singers in her care like me and like Amy Nichols, my classmate and frequent singing partner.   Cherie was intense – she pushed us – she demanded the best from us –  but she did so with hilarious humor and with unfailing affection and love. And she was 1000% committed to her voice students; I think she would have walked through fire for us.  And to study voice with her was to experience a double decker sense of discovery – because we were exploring not only the world of Great Music, but also exploring our own gifts, our own potential.   But I’m pretty sure that none of us who studied with Cherie fully appreciated at the time just how exceptionally blessed – ridiculously blessed we were that such a superb voice teacher lived in that little Iowa town of 9,000.  Much as we loved her,  we were clueless when it came to understanding the extent of our blessedness.

There’s one more thing I need to say.  For as fine a teacher as Cherie was, she was always careful to give credit to her own beloved teacher at Simpson College, Janice Hansen, who had died some years before.  I can remember Cherie playing a recording of her teacher singing songs by Franz Liszt – I believe it was from the last recital she sang before she died – and pointing out the stunning solidity and evenness and control of her singing.  And because this woman had a strong background in biology and physiology,  she knew the workings of the human body much better than the typical voice teacher – and Cherie not only benefited from all that Professor Hansen shared with her, she felt so privileged to be able to pass on that wealth of knowledge to her own students . . . students like me.  And now I’m trying to do the same thing with the young men I am blessed to teach.

When I went back to Atlantic back in early April – my first time back in many many years –  I wanted to drive past every place that had been important to me . . . the houses of old friends,  my favorite restaurants,  the public library where I spent countless hours,  the Baptist Church where I played organ, etc. –  and for sure, I wanted to drive past the house where Cherie lived when I started voice lessons with her.  I knew sort of where it was,  but I’m sure I hadn’t been past that house in at least 25 years (by the time I left for college in 1978 she and Cindi had moved to a new home) . . .   and try as I might, I just couldn’t find it.   Finally, I sent Cherie a text message  Sunday morning (during church – naughty me!)  just hours before I would be returning home . . . asking her if she still remembered the address of her first house in Atlantic.  She did!  And once I knew what street I was looking for,  I knew I would find the house…. and I did (without GPS, I might add!)  And as I pulled up in front of it,  I found myself awash in memories that I hadn’t thought of in decades . . .  and awash in gratitude for all of the teachers who have helped shape me into the singer and teacher I am today.   But the teacher who made the most difference – to whom I am most indebted –  is the one with whom it all began, 38 years ago,  in this little house in Atlantic, Iowa ….

P.S.-  I never had to pay for any of my voice lessons.  I believe that they were underwritten by a cherished family friend,  Fletcher Nichols, whose daughters (or at least most of them) studied with Cherie.  He paid for my piano lessons as well.  I can’t get over his generosity.  But I know that Cherie herself was also generous.  There were plenty of times that I was back from college and had lessons with her- and I’m pretty sure that I never even offered to pay for them.  (I’m horrified to think of that.)  I’ve tried to Pay It Forward ever since.