DEAR ABBY: Excuse me? Did I detect the perception of a correlation between "uncool" and "being in the high school band" in recent letters in your column?
I played baritone horn in school band and married my childhood sweetheart, a tuba player, 22 years ago. We gave birth to a French horn-playing daughter and a trombone-playing son, both all-state band musicians. Our homegrown brass quartet plays together in churches, at festivals and in our local community band, and I arrange music for us.
Can life even get any cooler than being able to share brass with your entire family? As they say (to paraphrase just a bit), "The family that PLAYS together, STAYS together!" My advice to your school-age readers is, don't bypass those band people! Our kind of "cool" holds up over time. -- KAY IN BASS CLEF, MILFORD, DEL.
DEAR KAY: It certainly does. Through music, your children have learned more than the value of teamwork -- you live together in beautiful harmony. What a gift!