Gillespie still talked about the college down in the mountains of North Carolina. He wanted to interest somebody in applying there, but nobody paid him any mind. The town kids were all planning to attend some university or other, and the holler kids who were going anywhere at all were going to Radford Teachers’ College or Bluefield Business College or somewhere like that. The rest of us were through with school. But on a rainy Tuesday in February he asked me, Rosemary, and Bobby Lynn to stay after school, and he showed us this material he had on Mountain Retreat College. “They have a superior music curriculum,” Mr. Gillespie said. “And they are especially supportive of the average student who doesn’t have much money.” I was looking out the window of the band room, watching the rain fall on the graveyard on the hill and remembering that first day I saw Mr. Gillespie. I couldn’t bring up those feelings I had for him. Where did they go? “My wife received a fine music education at Mountain Retreat,”
