This famous painting by Edward Hopper pretty much depicts for me Jackson Street, when I recall the bygone days back home.
I’ve always somehow felt close to the owners of local shops, large and small. It’s a kind of admirative solidarity for those everyday tradespeople, and it’s a sentiment which has gone on to naturally inspire my own work ethic.
After all, Uncle Leo in my hometown was a most respected grocer and trusted butcher (the best T-bone steaks you could find anywhere!), as well as supporting the Little League, and my Uncle Harold was a master carpenter and craftsman, who lovingly applied his trade locally, including many times in our house in Pavilion. My mother was the town doctor’s medical secretary for 17 years, and while working with the beloved Dr. Heuman, she inevitably got to know everyone in the area, meanwhile earning their trust and respect.
These were my people, honored for their hard work, who gained their impeccable reputations based on their good will, honesty, and their utility in the community.
I was saddened tonight to hear of the loss of another one of these pillars of my youth, the lady who ran the local music store, Roxy’s Music Store in Batavia. Rose Caccamise was Roxy’s daughter, and took over the family business over 50 years ago when her accordionist father passed on. But I remember her in her father’s store since the days of my first piano lessons at age six. At Roxy’s they carried the “John Thompson Piano Method,” and I went through several grades during those years, always purchasing my book right there in town. Tall and slender, Rose was always energetically smiling and encouraging to this young man as he made his first steps into the world of music.
When they temporarily had the store on Jackson Street, it was right across the street from my Grandparent’s apartment at number 19. Of course that’s where Nana would play and sing for me, since my earliest memories. Mum and I walked into that store on numerous Saturday afternoons, and I’d pick out sheet music of Broadway songs I may have heard, or piano Rag hits by JoAnn Castle I’d seen on The Lawrence Welk show, or even an ambitious piano score of Liszt’s ‘Liebestraum’ from the very well-stocked racks. Rose had everything, it seemed.
But what a treasure that store was, what a marvelous golden age it was. Because she was working, Mum had the finest solid walnut RCA stereo console of the moment, and the deep sound was truly a joy in our little living room. Sometimes, when all alone, I would sit on the floor between the speakers, enthralled.
The record department’s selections of LPs at Roxy’s seemed to be a vast and endless ocean of discovery to my young, gaping eyes… All those foreign words on the Deutsche Gramophone albums were an invitation to discovery. Other records displayed on their covers exotic color pictures, and promises of “Hi Fidelity” and “Dynamic Stereo.”
The first classical album I bought on my own was at Roxy’s, I think when they were on Main Street in the original store. Rose was behind the counter. It was an all-Brahms Lieder recital by baritone Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau. I swear the only word I understood on the jacket was “Brahms,” but the bearded portrait of the great Romantic composer reassured me. I wasn’t disappointed, and I played that album endlessly. Needless to say, it led to many more purchases.
Rose was eager to follow my advancing studies. Even when my tastes led me to venture more often into Rochester at the Eastman School’s music store (where Mum purchased for me my first Volume One of Complete Brahms Songs for Low Voice, for seven dollars – I still have the well-worn score) I would return to visit after my semesters in Boston to keep her up to date.
Rose had heard a recital concert sung by Ré Koster, the mezzo-soprano, met her, and learned that she was on the faculty at NEC. Actually I never met her, but my teacher Mark Pearson gracefully gave me a used score which he didn’t need, since I was financially threadbare that first year: it was Volume One of the Complete Schubert Songs for Low Voice, and boldly signed by Ré Koster. The score is falling apart now after so many intensive hours spent working with those marvelous songs… And I’m confident that Rose would be very happy to know that I still have it, and was inspired by it.
One last word. Rose was quite devout, being of Italian immigrant ancestry. She was the first and only person to whom I ever told my story about a singular, mystical event that I experienced while performing in Jerusalem, and I wanted to share it with her right after my return (I mentioned that occurrence in a post here on April 12). As she took it all in, Rose had tears in her eyes, while shaking her head in disbelief, and reached for a Kleenex. For as anyone who ever met her would know, tears could come very easily to her. She was a lover of Beauty, and like myself, had a great vertical connection with Beauty.
Caring and sacrifice, along with enormous human empathy, are all part of running and holding together a successful small-town business. And right up until she left us this week, at age 80, Rose had all of those ingredients.