Page 93 - a-columbia-county-boys-recollections-and-memories-of-columbia-county-florida-(2012)-lenvil-h-dicks

A Columbia County Boy's Recollections and Memories of Columbia County Florida (2012) Lenvil H. Dicks

was an older gentleman named Joe Cinquimati, and he was from Italy. In fact, most of the members of
the Dallas Symphony were from foreign countries, many from Latvia, Finland, Italy, Germany, and
some of the other European Countries. 1 think Red Bromfield and I might have been the only two
southern American boys in the Orchestra.

After the Saturday night Concert, when I was backstage putting away my instrument, I was approached
by the actual Conductor of the Dallas Symphony, a man named Walter Hendyl, who had two years
previous been the assistant Conductor for the New York Philharmonic. I was in great awe of this
gentleman, and was a little surprised when he came over to me and started a conversation. Then he said
to me, “Mr. Dicks the Orchestra is leaving on a 3 week tour of the Western United States next Tuesday
morning, and we would appreciate it if you could find a way to go with us and play". I told him I would
be most happy to do so but I was in college down at Baylor, and had some reservations about trying to
be gone 3 weeks. At that time Dean Sternberg, who had been listening to the conversation, spoke up and
said “Lenvil you do not need to worry about your grades at the University. I will see that your grades do
not suffer and you will learn more in three weeks with this Orchestra than we could possibly teach you
in a long period of time. If you want to go, go ahead and plan to go and I will make it alright with the
Administration at Baylor". So I began my association with the Dallas Symphony Orchestra by going on
that 3 week tour, and then played with the Orchestra with the position of First Trumpet until I got
homesick a couple of years later and decided to come back to Florida. 1 enjoyed playing in the
Orchestra, but there were really very few people in it that 1 could relate to, being a North Central Florida
country farm boy who just happened to play the trumpet. That was the main highlight of my whole life,
the time I spent playing with the Dallas Orchestra, and it was on that tour that I saw my first snow.

The first concert on the tour was in Big Springs Texas, where we played and spent one night, and 1 saw
something in Big Springs that I will never forget. 1 had occasion to go down to the Post Office early the
next morning after the concert, and before we had to board the buses to continue the tour, and the entire
back wall, of the Post Office, which was huge, was a bigger- than- life mural painted on the wall
showing untold numbers of buffalo, and Indians on horseback, hunting them with bows and arrows. I
still wonder to this day if that mural is still on the Post Office back wall in Big Springs, Texas, but I
never had the opportunity to go back and check it out, although I would like to. Some of the other towns
we played in were Farmington New Mexico, Colorado Springs Colorado, Denver Colorado (2 nights),
and from Denver we went up to Laramie Wyoming for our concert the next night.

It was on this trip in Denver to Laramie that I saw my first snow which began to fall at a rapid rate, and
at the same time there were high winds blowing the snow which had already fallen in a horizontal
direction, so that you could barely see 100 feet in front of the bus. It snowed all day on us after about
11:00 that morning. We were actually a little bit late getting to the concert location in Laramie that
night. However, the folks sort of expected us to be late and we got off the bus, got into our concert
clothes, and went on stage as quickly as we could after we arrived there. From Laramie we went over
and played a concert in Cheyenne and then started back down and across Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma,
and finally ended up with the last concert down in South Texas at Galveston. The bus then left, headed
back to Dallas where I had left my car, and then I went back and finished getting my masters Degree at
Baylor which I received the following July after that concert tour in March.

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