He sat in the shade of the square brick building, his name in large white letters above him. His white hair wasn't much longer than the crewcut I remembered.
I leaned over to introduce myself, knowing that out of 15,000 students taught over the course of thirty years, he wouldn't remember me. "I played trumpet in your band," I said.
"Did you do anything with it?" he asked.
"I played in the Furman University bands," I replied. Tears came to his eyes as he said, "Wonderful. That's wonderful." That was his goal, to instill a love for and appreciation of music in these kids in the throes of raging adolescence.
Along with many others, I'd gathered for the dedication of the Wiley Middle School band room in honor of John (Chick) Shelton, Mr Shelton to generations of junior high and middle school kids. It was both a chance to honor a teacher and to reconnect with friends, some of whom I'd not seen for the better part of thirty years.
He called us knuckleheads, and we roared with laughter and memory. How many times had he called us that as he taught us that instruments cases were neither chairs to sit on or footstools to rest out feet upon? He told us that he'd lost his hearing, the consequences of listening to thirty years of junior high students learning to play. Former students paid tribute to him, both by presence and by letter. They literally came from all over the country when they heard Mr. Shelton was being honored. Ben Folds could not break away from his tour to be there and so he shared by letter the story of how a visit by Mr. Shelton's jazz band to Folds' elementary school had stoked his desire to make music.
Lennie Foy was able to be there before leaving for Russia with the Smithsonian Jazz Orchestra. (I'm proud to say that there's no limit to the heights you can reach when you start out playing trumpet next to me.)
John Shelton touched all of our lives, Lennie and Ben and me and my friend who proudly acknowledged that she was one of the most mediocre flute players to ever come out of Forsyth County. He made band - and music - cool. In a way, you wouldn't expect it of him. It was the early seventies for us, and the guys had long hair and the girls had longer hair and we all wore raggedy jeans and t-shirts. But even with a crewcut and a white shirt, John Shelton was cool. Maybe it was because he could conduct and play the trumpet at the same time. Maybe it was because he also played with jazz bands and big bands and the local symphony.
But maybe we loved being in that band room so much because Mr. Shelton treated us like musicians. He expected us to behave like musicians and wasn't shy about giving out detention if we didn't. He was patient and yet demanding. He loved music with a passion and his greatest desire wasn't so much that we'd be professional musicians (which is a good thing considering what he had to work with) but that we'd love music too.
I told Mr. Shelton that I'd played in college bands and it was true. But what I did with what he gave me was more than that. I wish I'd told him about my time leading a group of teenage handbell ringers, unconsciously trying to share with them the same gift he shared with me.
We are better people when we risk investing ourselves in things for which the return on investment is not certain. Like thirteen year old kids. We are better people when we live with passion and are not shy about sharing that passion with others, whether it's making beautiful music or growing beautiful things or even running along a beautiful route.
Because he was willing to do that, Mr Shelton changed the world - at least our corner of it.
