My Dad was the showman in the family. He was the Supervisor of Music for my local hometown school district. Dad would say that no other teacher had their work on display for the whole town to see every Friday night. Dad was particular. Dad had a standard of excellence that generations of children in our home town understand at a personal level.

March 7th was Dad’s Birthday. But then he would say it was on the 10^th, and so for years, it was a true floating holiday to whatever day he decided to celebrate. March reminds me of Dad.

Dad taught me to concentrate. Concentration is one of the foundations of Mindfulness. If you can concentrate, you can meditate. Meditation was a natural outgrowth of specifically focused attention.

Dad was a pioneer in understanding that playing music stimulated the other half of your brain, and made it easier to remember facts, figures, and computations.  On the big band trip to Disney World in 1976, he was afraid that the band would be out of synch with the...