Reed read

At the beginning of my seventh-grade year, my parents accompanied me to an orientation at Wilson School in Caldwell, Idaho. When the band teacher mentioned that students who take up the oboe stand a good chance of earning college scholarhips, my mother strongly urged me to, well, take up the oboe. So I did.

It wasn’t until I was almost finished with high school, by which time I already learned I wasn’t a particularly dedicated or even good oboist and that I wanted to study journalism, that I figured out the band teacher in Idaho had meant student oboists can get college scholarships as long as they’re going to study music. Hah!

Still, I played the oboe at John Carroll University, even traveling to Chicago on tour with the concert band. I packed up my oboe for good my senior year.

Maybe it’s time to get it out again. This morning, the NYTimes asks, Where have all the oboes gone?.

Anton Zuiker ☄ Feb 12, 2005