Part five of the Celebrant turned out to be so long I felt the need to break it up into two pieces for the sake of my blog family. So this week you get two installments instead of just the one. I hope you enjoy! If you have missed any of the previous parts of Nathan’s Story it can be found here: http://wp.me/P39vIx-EQ

The Celebrant 5.5

The Christmas concert was paper snowflakes and tacky tinsel glittered over with the dulcet tones of untuned flutophones. It was magic after the highest order. Under its spell I became an addict to melody and rhythm.

After Christmas I started the trumpet.

In Fifth grade I got a paper route and bought myself a  dented French Horn.

In sixth grade it was the guitar.

In seventh the saxophone.

In eighth grade I joined the high school chorus as an alto and began piano lessons.

I was no prodigy. I was an addict. I would play the music until the music played me. The song it sang pushed me by increments away from my family. I think they missed me.They never said; So I just filled the hole inside with sound.

In the late eighties as Paul and I prepared to enter high school the stock market went bust. Adam’s bank account exploded. He focused his business in do-it- yourself hardware and camping supplies, two growth industries it seemed. With the money he made from his good -end- year Adam moved us out of the house on the hill to one of the new developments springing up all over Winchendon. Treasure heights was a block of large modular homes cut into the side of Mount Pleasant just below the Olde Center of town. Benjamin Street banked right onto Fiesta Dr. which curved left onto Celebration Dr. ,left again onto Gala Blvd and finally left once more onto Extravaganza Way.

The Dahlstrom family moved into number  2 Celebration Dr. a giant blue Edwardian affair complete with Grecian columns holding up the front porch roof. A giant brass chandelier swung over the stoop lighting the way into the foyer, a sunken living room to the left and a full dining room to the right. The Kitchen which ran the length of the house at the back was built around a  breakfast bar with built-in double sinks. A walkout to the left side spilled onto a sixteen by twenty deck that overlooked a manicured lawn that flowed back to a one story barn running the full length of the yard.

The shed, as we called this out building, had two doors and was walled directly in half with a connecting door between the two resulting rooms.

“This side,” said Adam motioning to the left, ” is going to be my workshop.”

“And this side,” He waved to the door on the right, “Is going to be your clubhouse. It is where all your sports equipment goes Paul and where all your instruments go Nathan.”

I wanted to protest but he raised a hand for silence. “The building has its own heat so none of your equipment will get damaged and there’s plenty of room for both of you to share.’

It took us the rest of the summer to unpack and organize but by the time I entered ninth grade I was the only kid in band with a practice studio.

My addiction was effectively shut out of the house but that’s how it was discovered by Mrs. Wallender.