When I was a small boy of ten, our house on Wilkins Avenue in Pittsburgh was the gathering place of a fabulous group of musicians. My father was a member of a musical family consisting of himself, four brothers and a sister. They would gather every Saturday night in our parlor and play Strauss Waltzes for the delectation of our friends and relatives. Aunt Caroline played the piano, Uncle Edward the violin, Uncle Louie the cornet, Uncle Clarence the ’cello and Uncle Albrecht the glockenspiel. Father weighed three hundred pounds and played the flute, but when the doctor told him to reduce he changed to the piccolo. My cousins Pfafner, Schwanda the Dudelsackpfeifer, Seigfried and my Aunt Brunhilde would come and sing Nibelungenlieder.

My first recollection was of myself hiding under the grand piano and watching Tante Caroline’s high button shoes pressing on the pedals during a Strauss Waltz. To this day the soft pedal has not a single scratch to mar its pristine brassy surface.

The mantle-piece held many steins with German inscriptions like “Trink gut and clean, too much let ’er go!” and similar gemutlich expressions. They were regularly filled and emptied, and the malts added Schmaltz to the Waltz. As a matter of fact, the family name was Schmaltz but was changed to Schmertz because of the pain suffered by the neighbors every Saturday night.

Now comes the point of the foregoing remarks. When Uncle Albrecht would play an exceptionally able passage on the glockenspiel, Tante Caroline would stop playing the piano, everyone would take a pull on their steins and Caroline would sing,  . . . “Ganz gut, Bruderkind, Bruderkind, Bruderkind, du bist nicht ein Schmo!” and so on for all the brothers. Then the brothers would sing, . . . “Ganz gut, Schwesterkind, Schwesterkind, Schwesterkind - night eine Schmo also!”, and this would go on into the night, stopping only when all sang “Wilkinsstrasse uber Alles” and went home. Mother would look at me under the piano and say,  . . . “Schlaf wohl, mein kind!” and I would awake in the cold light of dawn, drink the dregs of the steins, and go to Sunday school.

The net result of this early traumatic experience was my taking up the banjo, on which I have not willingly played a Strauss Waltz to this day.