|
NACC Staff Member Credits Music with
Saving Her Life
Music has become a lifesaver for Pat Bridgeman, Continuing
Education/Community Services Coordinator at Northeast Alabama
Community College. After the sudden death of her husband, Gary,
in 2003, Bridgeman searched for something which would return
meaning to her life as often happens when someone experiences
such a tragedy. She decided to pull out a violin that she had
ordered from a Spiegel catalog more than 30 years before. “The
violin came with a thin book entitled How to Play a Violin,”
said Bridgeman.
“When Gary died, we were three and a half months away from our
36th anniversary, and I wanted to die, too. I found out, though,
that God doesn’t let you die just because you want to. I had
never had my own room. All of a sudden, I had a whole house to
myself. Our lives had been full of activity of one kind or
another. That changed to a life of getting up and going to work
at Northeast and then going home and going to bed. For several
years we had anywhere from four to eleven people at our supper
table every night. Now I would go as long as five months without
another person in my house. I had just gone through that
five-month period when I saw the notice on the Huntsville
Symphony Orchestra website about the adult strings class.
Actually, I was looking for the sneak preview schedule. The
sneak preview is a wonderful way for families and older people
who may not want to get out at night to see the orchestra. It’s
their final rehearsal before a performance, and it costs $5. We
had done that once when the kids were little, and I was hoping
that they still had that available,” she added.
 Bridgeman
was delighted to find that the Huntsville Symphony Orchestra
offered string classes for adult beginners. “I moped for a while
and wavered back and forth, but I took a deep breath and signed
up.” At fifty-six years of age she would take her first string
class. “I didn’t even tell anyone about signing up until after I
had gone to the first class. Then I emailed the kids, ‘You won’t
believe what I have done.’ Their response was immediate and
enthusiastic. ‘Mom, that’s great.’ ‘I’m so glad you’re doing
this.’ Every time I talk to them, they ask me how the lessons
are going.”
Bridgeman found that the Huntsville
Symphony Orchestra’s Department of Education is happy to have
adult students, regardless of age, and that its philosophy is
that everyone should have the opportunity to enjoy and play
music.
“We believe our orchestra and its music
belong to all people,” says HSO’s Music Director Carlos Miguel
Prieto. Joseph Lee, HSO’s director of education and assistant
conductor, added, “The Huntsville Symphony Orchestra’s
Department of Education does not exist to create professional
musicians. We exist to create a new generation of music lovers
to ensure that this great art form lives on.”
Bridgeman enjoyed the adult strings class with Charles Hogue,
one of the Huntsville Symphony Orchestra’s teachers, who plays
principal viola in the orchestra. Her classmates included
college students and a gentleman who is “even older than I” she
offered. But what stands out is that everyone who knows her is
aware that this class has been a lifesaver for her. “Each of my
five children could play one instrument or another, with varying
degrees of success: flute, clarinet, trumpet, piano, oboe, or
saxophone,” she said. “It was my job to sit in the car and
wait.” And now she travels 56 miles once a week from Scottsboro
to Huntsville to pursue her lifelong dream.
“When our class got to the end of the first semester, all the
way home I was really sad because I no longer had the class to
look forward to every week. I did keep working on the music
through the summer, though, and then found out that we would
have a second (intermediate) class in the fall. When fall
semester was over, again we didn’t know whether that might be
the end of our classes. Then we got a message that we would have
a third semester of classes with a different teacher. Mr. Hogue
just didn’t have another night left to teach another class, so
Joseph Lee, who is the assistant conductor of the Huntsville
Symphony said that he would teach our class. We are now called
the Adult Chamber Orchestra. We have several new faces in our
class; everyone has had at least a year of music instruction.
We’re even going to have a ‘concert’ May 1 to mark the end of
this semester. A music camp is planned for the first week in
June, and after that, again we don’t know what will be next.
Whatever it is we have a good foundation to build on.”
Bridgeman reminisced. “Right after we moved to Scottsboro, the
Huntsville Symphony used to come to Scottsboro once a year, and
my birthday present would be that we would dress up and go to
hear them play,” remembered Bridgeman. “That was not Gary’s
favorite kind of music, and I really didn’t think he was paying
a whole lot of attention until I heard him tell some friends,
‘You should have seen Pat. She was sitting there nodding her
head and grinning from ear to ear’.”
The first time Bridgeman saw Gary was Valentine’s Day 1965. “I
was playing the piano for the Airmen’s Sunday School class, and
it was his first time to be there. He had intended to catch the
bus to a different church, but ended up where I attended
instead. For years he told everyone he knew that everything
happened because he had gotten on the wrong bus. I finally asked
him why he kept getting on that same bus if it was the wrong
one. Every year he would tell that story to family, friends, and
coworkers and call it the ‘Valentine’s Day Bus Massacre’; and I
would tell him, ‘I still feel the same way about you now as I
did then – you don’t look eighteen.’ The result of that fateful
day was that we got married two years later. We were blessed
with five children and four grandchildren and all the activity
that comes with that. Our days were filled with church services,
softball, baseball, basketball, and football games, band
concerts, and track and cross-country meets. Then our daughter
married a man who had five children and two grandchildren, so we
became instant great grandparents.”
Bridgeman explained that Gary was a really quiet person when she
met him. “In fact, the kids used to tell their friends, ‘If you
want Daddy to talk, just ask him about his kids or grandkids or
sports. Then you won’t be able to get him to stop.’ When our
youngest daughter went away to college, it was the first time in
30 years that we had not had a child living in our house. Gary
still enjoyed helping with the cross country and track meets,
just as he had enjoyed working with field day after our children
left elementary school. He used to take vacation time to be able
to help with field days. On Saturday mornings we would get in
his new truck and start riding, not knowing where we were going
or when we would be back, but just enjoying each other’s
company.”
Bridgeman beams when telling about her family. “I have five
children, nine grandchildren, and two, great grandchildren in
five different states,” she said. “I’m just glad they are all in
the country now. That has not always been the case. In fact,
when Gary died, my oldest daughter was living in the United Arab
Emirates. Gary always took great pride in telling his friends,
‘Five kids – five college graduates’.” Cathy, the world
traveler, now lives in Chicago and works at Illinois Institute
of Technology. Cindy and her husband live in Athens, and she
works for an attorney. Curtis lives in Tallahassee with his wife
and two sons and teaches at the Florida State University School
of Law. Karen lives in Connecticut with her husband and son and
daughter. They are both in the Navy, but Karen will be getting
out in June. Jenny and her husband live in Tulsa, and she is
office manager for a veterinarian.
She still thinks she is at her best on her violin when no one is
listening but takes her music seriously. Thinking back to that
one day in January of 2006 when she was leaving Northeast with
her thirty year old violin in her car and she was getting ready
to drive to Huntsville for her first lesson it came to her--“I
realized it was no longer a want; playing my music became my
need.”
Bridgeman is the Continuing Education/Community Services
Coordinator in the Workforce Development Office at Northeast
Alabama Community College and has worked at the College for 14
years. |
