Musical Interlude, Part 1

Have you watched those big live orchestras in concert or on television? Have you wondered where all those musicians came from, especially violin players? Well, as they say, from little acorns grow giant oaks. . .
When I was about 8 years old, a man rang the doorbell of our house on 10th Street in Philadelphia. He was looking for young boys or girls to take music lessons and I was a prime candidate.
All questions resolved, I started taking lessons with Professor Barrington on the second floor room of his house somewhere around 9th Street and Lehigh Avenue. He rehabilitated my father's old violin that he brought with him from Germany and restrung the bow with a full mane of horsehair.
Every week on Tuesdays I would walk from my house to the professor's house, paying my $2 lesson fee and wait for my class to begin. There were usually two or three other student violinists waiting and we would go upstairs to his studio and take lessons as a group.
Professor would play the lesson first, then students played, and the professor played, and the students played. The professor pasted a fingering diagram on the neck of our violins to guide us with fingering positions to play the notes in our lesson book and, with practice, we learned to play scales.
When we conquered the scales, we played tunes like "Pop Goes the Weasel," and if we took enough lessons and practiced regularly we played more difficult music.
I joined the school orchestra at Ferguson grade school and played from sixth through eighth grade. By ninth grade, I gave up the idea of playing with the Philadelphia Orchestra to concentrate on my art and drawing skills. But some of the other students continued playing in high school and may still be playing, perhaps in the Philadelphia Orchestra violin section, as "giant oaks."