First a bit of history...

I "also competed" in the AAA United States Accordion Cup for a chance to go to the Coup Mondiale. I found out later that I actually got last place after freezing on stage in the middle of a song, however, Gene and MaryAnn were nice enough to not tell me that I got last at the time :)

Memories....
My best memories are from all of the fun we had as a group in the Accordion Orchestra. Showband '78 was great, but I was a little young during that trip (I was 11). The best memories are from the trips to Orlando, Nashville, Miami, Hershey, Kansas City and Boston. I remember playing at Six Flags in St. Louis during the Kansas City trip and having our bus break down. We ended up having to push the bus down a hill in the parking lot so the driver could pop the clutch and start the bus. I remember going to the movie "Stripes" in Kansas City and having the bus driver claim he was the guardian for all of us so that we could get into the R rated movie. Of course I also have great memories of playing at Carnegie Hall. It is still fun to mention that to people if the topic of my accordion playing ever comes up.

Rehearsal Time - Trips
Even more than the trips, some of my fondest memories are of the rehearsals until all hours of the night as competitions got close, and all of the Christmas shows we would play to try and raise money for the trips.

Then of course there was the time that Gene tried to get me to sing. He told me to "hit and E" during "Too Much Heaven", so I sang "EEEE". Gene said, 'No... and E......no and "EEE"....never mind Kenn, you just play bass". Looking back, the friendships that I made with people like Todd Fonseca, Colleen Daschbach, Vanessa & Lisa Van, Nancy, Linda etc... etc... etc... were some of the best friendships of my life.

Teachers
On the individual performance side, I remember being scared to death when I had to change teachers from Laura to MaryAnn. I was 9 years old, and I thought Laura was the "nice one" and MaryAnn was the "mean one". I remember bawling my eyes out to my parents that I didn't want Laura to leave and I didn't want MaryAnn to be my teacher. As a 9 year old, I had no idea what a profound impact MaryAnn would end up having on my life. On the list of people that impacted my childhood, MaryAnn is at the top of the list right there behind my parents and grandparents. Yes, she taught me how to play the accordion, but I stopped doing that at age 18.

Life Lessons, Not Just Accordion Lessons
However, the lessons I learned about things like setting your goals higher than you think you can achieve and not settling for anything less than the best from yourself are more important than the ability to play the accordion. There is a saying that I heard a football player say recently....."If you want to be good at something then keep practicing until you get it right, but if you want to be great at something then keep practicing until you can't get it wrong". When I heard that statement, my first reaction was, "obviously....I learned that a long time ago from MaryAnn and Gene".

I also have some painful memories from individual performances. However, the lessons learned from these are just as valuable. Feeling like I was "robbed" at the Midwest Cup and feeling like more than 1 of us was robbed at the ATG in Chicago taught me that it is most important to be happy with your own performance and not to worry so much about what others may think of it. If you are you're own worst critic, and you can satisfy that worst critic, then good things will usually happen in the end. Another painful memory was me dropping out of the U.S. Accordion Cup in Boston during my last year before college. I had lost the passion as a result of the previous year's experience, but this all helped teach me the lesson I just talked about above.

My life now....
I now live in Barrington HIll, Illinois. I am a Director in Information Technologies at AT&T. I have a wonderful wife (Sue) and 3 kids. Andrew is 13. He plays the piano and the trumpet. Katie is 11. She plays the piano and the flute. Kristin is 9. She plays the piano and......wait for it......yes.......the accordion. The fact that she wanted to play, has gotten me back into playing. When people at work heard that I used to play, we set up a concert where you could come see Kenn play for a donation to charity. We ended up raising over $500 and I played for about 50 people. Nothing too fancy, just stuff like polkas, Sabre Dance, Jolly Caballero and Donkey Serenade. I also ended up playing in the church orchestra at Midnight Mass for Christmas. It's been fun to dust off the cobwebs and start playing again.

Teaching Kristin to play has brought back lots of memories. She is now in the Palmer Hughes book 2B and it is fun to see all of the stuff that Laura had written all over the music that we are using!

                                Well.....that's my story. I can't wait to see everybody again.

                                                                Thanks,
                                                                         Kenn Baert