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OK...

I've been using this a somewhat of a pejorative re: student musicians who tear up stuff real good.

This evening a young man showed up with one of those widely-advertised Yamaha-like Chinese silver/gold-trim euphoniums - yet with a nice set of bell flare creases on the front.

He didn't ask me to work on the valves (and I'm not sure that I could have done much for them), but that's not the point.

As a high school senior, he's already been accepted into a US Marine Corps base band playing the euphonium.

He was extremely polite and responsive, and grateful.

I got him in/out of here in about a half hour, and it's very difficult to see evidence of the repair.

He called ahead to ask how much something like this might cost, so I asked him how much he hoped it would cost.

In response, he gave me a price range, to which I responded that it would be less than the bottom of his hoped price range, and to come on out.

' nice young man...no longer a scholar, but one of the few...the proud...the euphoniumistes.

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I graduated from high school in 1974. Basically directionless except for music. My dad suggested I join the military to play in a band. Best advice I never took. Same reason: too close to Vietnam.

I graduated in 74 as well, and probably would have given that stuff a shot - as well as showing them what I could do on the electric bass, but the draft ended right then.