 |
||||||||
 |
||||||||
|
||||||||
|
The view from a piano stool
By COLLEEN JENKINS
© St. Petersburg Times, Her hands flying over the piano keys, the 78-year-old never glanced at the music as she played Down the River of Golden Dreams, It Had to be You, Try a Little Tenderness and Ain't We Got Fun? Instead, Betty Johnson used the interludes between each song to brush her fingers over a little cream-colored sheet of paper that listed the song titles. Then she relied on her memory and ears to guide her through each note. She never missed a beat. "How many do we have?" she shouted from her corner of the stage, wondering what size crowd the Shuffleboard Club's Monday night sing-along had drawn. "Sixty-three," responded someone from the audience. "Wow!" she clapped in delight, and geared up for another round of songs. The music lady"There's only one Betty," said Bill Irving of New Port Richey, as the sing-along at Asbury United Methodist Church wrapped up. A visitor quickly picks up on the cheer that Johnson's spirit and musical talent have brought to Pasco residents for almost three decades as she has traveled to nursing homes and community gatherings. What takes a little longer to realize is that her blue eyes don't see those smiling faces. They've never seen anything. Johnson has been blind since birth. It's a disability with which she has grown comfortable. "I don't think I'd want to see," she said on a recent morning from her mobile home in New Port Richey. "There's so much sadness in this world. So many bad things happen. I think about them, and I visualize them, but I don't have to look at them." Still, Johnson is the first to admit she would not be this nonchalant about her blindness were it not for her skill on the piano. And the organ. And the accordion. For much of Johnson's life, music has been the force that keeps her going. "I love my music," she said. "I don't know what I'd do without it. (God) didn't give me the sight, but he gave me the talent. Which is more important?" The answer for Johnson is obvious. When she was 4 or 5 years old, she crawled up onto the stool of her mother's old beat-up piano and began to play. "I started with two fingers and kept going," she said. "I guess they call it by ear." At 8, Johnson began formal schooling at the Overbrook School for the Blind in her hometown of Philadelphia. The school offered piano lessons, but she hated them. To read music in Braille, she had to feel the notes with her left hand and play with her right hand, then switch. The energetic little girl found the process painstakingly slow. A history of helpingThe school's music program also required everything to be memorized, which was how Johnson operated anyway. She'd hear a song on the radio, listen closely to get the tune in her head and then peck it out on the keyboard until she got it right. When World War II came, the 19-year-old Johnson wanted to do her part. She took a course on radio communications and helped make airplane parts at a defense plant. But it was playing the accordion for wounded soldiers in Pennsylvania hospitals that proved to be her most memorable contribution. One day at the Valley Forge Hospital, staff members told Johnson about a young machine gunner whose face had been destroyed by mortar shells in Germany. He had completely lost his sight and didn't want to live. That is, until Bob Johnson heard the young woman play her accordion. "He was like an angel," she remembered. Married in 1949, they were together until 1973 when Bob died of cancer. During their marriage, the rug weaving business they ran from their home in Gettysburg, Pa., drew the attention of Mamie Eisenhower, who bought some of their rugs. She also spread the Johnsons' story nationwide, noting that Bob Johnson had fought in her husband's infantry during the war. The Johnsons charged $5 for a nylon rug and $4 for a cotton rug. "We didn't make any money at all," she said with a laugh. "But we had fun, and we had something to do. My gosh, we had stacks of mail for orders." Johnson moved to Pasco County in 1975 and soon was playing at nursing homes. For a while, she led a little band that included a drummer and saxophonist. The trio played at community centers and parties. But Johnson always included nursing homes on her itinerary. "The people need me," she said. "They need entertainment so badly." During hip replacement surgery in 1992, Johnson's blood pressure skyrocketed, and she had a minor stroke. She suffered memory loss, forgetting numbers and some words. For weeks, she worried that her music ability had gone. "Everyone kept saying, 'Try the piano, try the piano,' and I was so afraid," she said. "I had to wait a long time, but I finally got on the piano, and it" -- she snapped her fingers -- "was like clockwork." Pretty soon, she was back on the nursing home circuit, minus the heavy accordion. Even two heart bypass surgeries last year didn't stop her. Her determination inspires others. "Any time something goes wrong with me, I think if Betty can do it, so can I," said Betty Damaso, who hears Johnson play at gatherings for the New Port Richey AARP chapter and the Shuffleboard Club. For her part, Johnson thinks of her life as normal, despite being blind. She cooks for herself and does her own gardening. An accountant friend helps her with her banking. She distinguishes money by folding bills in a certain way: $1 bills stay straight, $5 bills fold in half, $10 bills fold in half twice. Another friend sews Braille letters into Johnson's clothes so she can coordinate her outfits. And she still plays on the same Rudolphi piano that her mother bought for her with a down payment of 50 cents in 1940. They eventually paid $250 for it. "My life is full," she said. "I've done so much and enjoyed so much that I don't think I've missed anything. If anybody needs anything, I'll do it, and I'm not being a Pollyanna." Playing two dozen songs for the Shuffleboard sing-alongs takes a lot more concentration for Johnson since her stroke, but she doesn't mind the extra effort. She joins in on the singing for most songs, and often ends a piece with laughter and clapping. She might have to peck around on a few keys to find middle C at the beginning of the night, but after that, her hands just fall into place. Gold earrings shaped like music notes sparkle on her ears. When the sing-along ends, a small group bustles around Johnson with hugs and greetings. They don't get to visit long because the men closing the church hall for the night have left the seniors standing in the dark. "They turned all the lights out on us," Damaso said. Johnson laughed. "I don't mind a bit."
 © 2006 • All Rights Reserved • Tampa Bay Times
490 First Avenue South • St. Petersburg, FL 33701 • 727-893-8111 
|
From today's Pasco Times |
