Posted by comments on Sage One - no reflection on PedalBb on January 29, 2000 at 01:57:00:
In Reply to: Anyone go to or know about ucf?? posted by PedalBb on January 23, 2000 at 22:09:34:
I bought my first tuba, a Mirafone CC 186, in 1974. It cost MUCH more in "real money" than these instruments do today: $1,800 + case + shipping for four valves (about $2,150).
I got the money to buy it by working at an Esso (later Exxon) car wash for 12 straight hours (no breaks or meals) on Saturdays and Sundays in the 12th grade. My pay was $1.65 an hour. I felt great about it, because they had just raised the pay from $1.25 an hour. I didn't think that I was being mistreated by Exxon. Rather, I was tickled to have a job where I could put in so many hours in so few days only 2 blocks from my parents' house. (Oh yeah, my folks didn't buy me a car, either -- Weren't they "mean spirited"?)
I sacrificed my weekends because I knew that the tubas at the university that I would be attending were crappy, and decided that I was a little more dedicated to what I was doing than to deal with one of those instruments. (Again, it just didn't occur to me to demand of my selfish and materialistic parents a $2000 tuba.) I wouldn't want to suggest than any of you 21st Century boys put in any time and earn anything, though. Just hold out your hands and look at others with an indignant look on your face, and someone will come along and give you whatever you want. After all, this IS post-1984 America.