Robert Burrows, Master Music Teacher and Mentor

My exposure to Robert Burrows spanned more than 40 years, and it was all related to music. I first saw him in my elementary school one day in December, when he brought in about twenty boys to sing Christmas carols in the central hallway on the first floor. Mr. Burrows, a slim man at the time, wore a red suit coat with a green tie, while the boys had white shirts on. We stood in a layered semicircle to watch and listen. Behind him and the singers was a tall Christmas tree with its lights aglow. It was a moving scene, and I felt that I might want to do that some day.

Mr. Burrows taught vocal music and history all through the 1950's. In the field of music, he was outstanding. His role fit right in with the public schools' rich curriculum in music. All through elementary school our teachers showed us how to read music, to know key signatures, tempo, and pitches, and we did a lot of singing. In sixth grade we were told early on that we had to make a choice of music for next year: band, orchestra, choir, or general music. As it happened, I was singing in a youth choir in church, and I was taking piano lessons, and I enjoyed these activities immensely. So I knew already that I wanted to specialize in piano and voice.

At Lakeside School, my elementary school, a band teacher came in to give an interesting presentation in order to recruit band members for the next year at East Jr.-Sr. High School. He said he would give private lessons in the meantime; the lessons would be free and would be on school time. I liked the presentation, but I still wanted choir. An orchestra teacher said to me privately much the same thing. Again, I had the same reaction, which I communicated to him. He ended with this thought: "You may be turning down more than you realize."

He was absolutely right about what I was turning down. However, what I was choosing was also much more than I realized. This was not so immediately apparent when Mr. Burrows came to make his pitch for joining the choir, but I got a small glimpse of the potential of my decision when my mother took me to see the operetta Brigadoon at East. She was teaching home economics there and had worked on the costumes for Mr. Burrows. The plot involved two American tourists who happen upon a Scottish town that has been put under a spell, so that each time the townspeople awake in the morning, another 100 years have passed. This plot was easy to follow, the music was good, and I found the production to be warmly spellbinding. At the breakfast table the next morning we were recalling the show and singing some of the songs. I knew that I wanted to do that some day.

So now the stage was set for singing under Mr. Burrows' direction the following year. In the meantime, I just had to continue to grow and learn and to let the rest of the school year play itself through.

In his classroom

School started on the Wednesday after Labor Day, but our first choir class was not until the following Friday, two days later. At our first class Mr. Burrows said, "Well, I'm glad to meet you at last! I have had to wait two whole days." This seemed like an unusually warm and positive thing to say. I mentioned that to my mother that evening, and she said that he had once remarked that he went home from school every day feeling very good about how the day had gone. (I know of only one other teacher who has said that, namely, Dr. Albert Tezla, who taught at UMD. He too has been an outstanding scholar and teacher.)

Mr. Burrows got a lot of joy out of teaching us music. To be sure, he could discipline a student who got out of line, and he was rigorous in teaching us the fundamentals of music. By and large, however, it was a fun, carefree class.

For all the recruitment we had received the preceding year, it was ironic that the class time for music and art had been cut in half. There had been a shortage of classroom space during homeroom period, so the decision had been made for seventh graders to have homeroom classes at the end of the day instead of at the beginning. We didn't have to be at school so early, but we left at the same time. Something had to be cut, and that was the nonessential classes of music and art. So the choir met for a half hour three days a week. However, we thoroughly enjoyed what we could get.

In eighth grade the next year, our boys' choir class periods were indeed an hour long. The students' voices were in all stages of change. I had gone from a soprano to a tenor, and soon I would be a bass. Our group managed some four-part harmony at times. The repertoire consisted of some folk songs and some classical.

In November we began learning Christmas songs, and soon we were the ones doing the caroling tours at the elementary schools. We were all wearing white shirts for the occasion, and we had been prompted ahead of time to hold a pose for a moment after each song, to let the mood sink in. Only after Mr. Burrows lowered his arms could we turn to the next song in our book. After the last song, the pause was to be even longer. We even knew to give a slight bow in unison, in response to any applause.

When the orange bus stopped at my old elementary school, and we disembarked and were filing in, I had a feeling of déjà vu, but in a different role. The tree in the lobby of my old elementary school didn't seem as tall as before. Still, it was nice to be back in familiar surroundings, albeit briefly and from a different perspective.

During my eighth grade year, I also got to see Mr. Burrows in another setting. My classmate Nancy Davis had organized monthly square dances to be held at Portman Square, the community recreation center in Lakeside. Nancy's father set up the room and electronic equipment, while her mother Jean was the hostess. The caller was the incomparable Art Fahland, a good dance instructor, and it was great fun. Mr. Burrows was the chaperone. The interior walls were made of stucco, having been covered with yellow paint many times. There were 48 students invited, to comprise six squares, but if one or more were missing, Mr. Burrows or Mrs. Davis would be asked to fill in. I remember one time in particular when Mr. Burrows was at my far left in the square, wearing a beige suit that had a muted checked pattern. He was light, agile and energetic, doing all the required moves smoothly and easily, smiling the whole time. This was when I became aware of his capacity for joy and delight.

Incidentally, if you don't recognize all these names, that's okay. It's just that I found out that I have to bring in a lot of other people besides Mr. Burrows and me, to give you the full picture.

Back at school, all of the choirs had to pose for pictures. Mr. Burrows gave us advance directions to wear a white shirt and tie to school on the day of the photo shoot. I forgot the shirt and tie, and when we assembled in the auditorium for the group photo, I asked him if I could be in the picture anyway. He politely declined. However, I then spotted a boy who was seated there for study hall; he was wearing a white shirt. I asked Mr. Burrows if we could arrange for me to wear that boy's shirt, and he went over and spoke to the boy. The boy went into the restroom and returned, handing me the shirt. I made the quick change in the restroom, then stepped in place in time for the photo. I still needed a tie, but as I positioned myself in the risers, I stood directly behind another boy whose name happened to be Harlan Johnson. In the group picture Harlan and I bear a vague resemblance to a totem pole, but I was in the picture. That was Mr. Burrows - strict, but willing to accommodate.

Interlude without Mr. Burrows

On our first day of classes in the ninth grade, we choir singers were in for a shock. The two mixed choirs for grades 9 though 12 had been split into three, and there was another choir teacher, Mr. Bob Ekstrom, on the faculty. This was at first a great disappointment.

However, Mr. Ekstrom was very good. He organized a lot of extracurricular music activities - a boys' barbershop chorus, a men's barbershop octet, and a mixed quartet that sang Mozart and Handel, among other things. This year was to be my only exposure at East to barbershop music, for this was beyond the boundary of Mr. Burrows' interest.

Mr. Ekstrom produced an operetta based on the story of Robin Hood. I had a semi-lead role, the Sheriff of Nottingham, with one or two solo numbers. This production was great fun and a huge success, a good opportunity for me. Mr. Burrows saw it, and he talked to me after one of the performances; this was my first interaction with him this year. He complimented me on my acting. I replied, "I wouldn't mind doing that sort of thing again."

"Maybe I can fit you in for a part next year," he replied. "Let me think about that."
"What are you doing next year?" I asked.
"I haven't completely decided yet."
"What are you doing this year?"
"It's called Finian's Rainbow," he replied. He had a faraway look in his face, and I could see that he already had a lot of ideas of what he wanted to do.

Back in his class

In Mr. Burrows' choir the following year, I could see more seriousness of purpose in his manner, though he still had a carefree air. One class began by our singing an anthem, "O Light Divine". Even though we basically knew the song, Mr. Burrows had a dissatisfied look on his face as we sang it. He went over and over different parts, saying for example, "Enlighten, not inlighten!" I had never before experienced such detailed work, and the improvements seemed at times to be subtle. Near the end of that class period, he at last seemed to be satisfied, and I had to admit that our rendering of the song seemed a bit more professional.

Mr. Burrows chose about ten of us to participate in the all-state choir in St. Paul. He had had the foresight to have the entire choir learn the same anthems that we needed to know for this trip. He saw us off on the bus but stayed in town. It was not exactly luxurious accommodations; the bus had been designed for elementary school students, with each group of three seats fitting only two of us. There was only one heater, up by the driver. That didn't seem to matter much, though. At Denfeld, about ten band members got on, along with their director. The ride was enjoyable, and we Eastites made some new friends. Once we were there, the experience of singing with so many people was exhilarating - such vocal power brought out the best in all of us.

Back home, I was diagnosed with pneumonia one day, just several hours before the evening performance of our class play - and I was supposed to be in that play. The doctor said it would be inadvisable to go ahead with the performance, so my mother called Mr. DeMuth, the director, to tell him the news. My part was cut out, along with a lot of lines by the girl who played my fiance. The play still had its integrity, but Mr. Burrows heard of this from students or faculty a few days later.

Still, Mr. Burrows had a substantial operetta part waiting for me when I was to return to school. The pneumonia lasted eight weeks, but at last I was ready get back. The first day I was to return, a ride had been arranged with my geometry teacher Mrs. Paulson. She rang the doorbell that morning only to find that we had all overslept, since my mother's alarm hadn't gone off. So my return was postponed by a day. The next morning my mother advised me to come home right after school, this being my first day up. I did that, skipping the operetta rehearsal.

The next day after choir class, Mr. Burrows said that he needed to talk with me. We stood between his piano and the blackboard, as he said "We missed you at two rehearsals." I explained the circumstances. Casting his eyes on the floor, he said that his problem was that he needed me to attend the rehearsals faithfully. I said I would. Then he brought up the fact that my pneumonia diagnosis had occurred on the night of the class play.

"You called in sick, and Mr. DeMuth had to cut out your part of the play."
"Yes, but I'm on the mend now. It's highly unlikely that I'll have a relapse."
"Highly unlikely might not be good enough."
"Okay, in the slim chance that I would have a relapse, I would tough it out."
"I wouldn't want you to have to do that."

He waited patiently as I thought it through and made attempts to resolve the issue. Eventually it came down to my deciding to cut out some of my other activities until the production was over. He still didn't seem entirely convinced, but it was clear that I could stay in the operetta role. He would only be truly convinced by my faithful attendance of the rehearsals.

Operetta rehearsals

In the auditorium, Mr. Burrows had a different demeanor than in the classroom. He had such a detailed idea of how he wanted things to be, and he needed to keep control over the wide area of the auditorium stage and audience area. There was a more commanding, uncompromising tone to his voice.

This operetta was very different from Brigadoon, which had had a lot of romance, grace, and warm fuzzies. Of Thee I Sing was a political satire, and it was loaded with humor. However, there was a romance between the two lead characters. I marveled at Mr. Burrows' clear concept of the high-level view, as well as of the minute details.

In casting the students in the roles, Mr. Burrows proved to be an acute judge of character. As a teenager I was quiet, but with a lot of hidden strengths. This suited me for the role of the vice presidential candidate. In the time when George and Ira Gershwin lived, vice presidents were all but invisible. Some of the scenes had the members of the campaign party trying to figure out who I was. After winning the election, I am seen in a tour of the White House, along with an odd assortment of out-of-towners, including two women of sharply contrasting heights, dressed in dowdy clothes, and pantomiming a conversation that always left everyone in stitches. Mr. Burrows himself had a great sense of humor, and he knew just how to get the right effects. My friend Bob Devlin played a boy. He walked in a crouch like Groucho Marx, to look shorter. At one point he was to feign kicking me in the shin, and I was to grimace in pain.

In this scene the tour guide happens to mention that the Senate session will start soon, with the Vice President presiding. I ask him where the Senate is, and upon getting the answer, rush offstage. The next scene has me situated behind a lectern in the Senate, singing out a role call and then leading the others with a song that makes Congressional ineptitude seem intentional. My character was clearly in his element here.

Mr. Burrows was also astute in placing my classmate Mike Berman in the role of campaign manager. Years later, Mike was the real-life campaign manager for Presidential candidate Walter Mondale.

One time in rehearsal, while reciting my lines onstage, I started inserting a few ad lib lines, just to make my classmates laugh. Mr. Burrows then whispered something to my classmate Bill ("Soapy") Adams, who then walked onstage and whispered in my ear, "Hey, Burrows is getting mad." I dropped the ad libs from that moment on, and I was impressed by the fact that he had stopped my extra lines without embarrassing me in public. He was always the gentleman! Well, almost always.

During one rehearsal Mr. Burrows confided to a few of the students that he had not had time to wash dishes in his apartment for three weeks. Of course there were few electric dishwashers in those days. From this, several students hatched a plot for a most unusual prank. They went to Mr. Burrows' house when they knew he wouldn't be home, opened a window, climbed inside, and washed and dried all his dishes. Then they climbed back out the window, shut it, went back to the car, and drove away.

As a follow-up prank, one of that group, Steve Kenner, called each of the others on the phone in turn, saying, "This is the police department. We are investigating a break-in at the home of Robert Burrows on Branch Street."

My operetta character enjoys success in a second way, due to a chance turn of events in the plot, almost a Deus ex machina. The plot involved a ploy to catch the public's attention to the presidential candidate. A beauty contest is set up, and he promises to marry the winner if elected. He is elected, but in the meantime, he has fallen in love with his secretary and so has to renege on the promise. However, since the winner of the beauty contest is of French extraction, the French ambassador comes to protest, and a diplomatic flap ensues. The Supreme Court resolves the issue by reassigning the obligation to me, the Vice President. I then walk up to the French beauty, we hold hands, and the entire cast sings the finale for the show.

This finale was definitely the high point of my sophomore year. The performance was a huge success, with everything having fallen into its proper place, down to the last detail, except for one thing: The woman who played Bob's mother was sick, and her substitute held him in such a tight rein that he could not pretend to kick me in the shin.

There were two events to celebrate our achievement. The first was the monthly school dance, which was called "Burrows' Ball" this time. The second was a surprise party for him in someone's home. It was a covered dish supper, featuring corn muffins and other food items that had been sung about in the operetta - as well as the usual run of covered dish items. Miss Paul was to have driven him to the party, but since he saw no need to hurry, they arrived two hours later than expected. By that time we had written these words to a song:

Who cares if you're late
Because dinner we ate.
Who cares if muffins are burned up,
Now that you and Miss Paul have turned up.
Come right on in, and we won't make a fuss,
As long as we care for you, and you care for us.

A month or so after all this had transpired, our choir was host to a choir from St. Louis Park, Minnesota. They gave a concert featuring their full choir and all the ensembles, solos, and duets. We provided accommodations and had a couple of social gatherings to welcome them. A few weeks later, it was our turn to visit them in St. Louis Park. Such trips were unusual back then, but Mr. Burrows had it all planned out, and it all went off without a hitch. After we returned, he required that all of us write thank-you letters to the families we had stayed with. Finally, we did a reprise of our road concert in our own auditorium, once during the daytime for the students and once during the evening.

All of this wrapped up the school year. I was even able to make up all the homework I had missed while I was out sick, though I did have to finish seventeen geometry assignments for Mrs. Paulson in one weekend to meet my make-up deadline.

Clubs

When the next school year began, I got a glimpse of how Mr. Burrows could turn something mundane into something very fine indeed. Throughout my six years at East, there was one hour every week devoted to "clubs". Attendance was mandatory, but we could make three choices, and no grades were recorded for these sessions. It was a wide-ranging field to select from. Mine had been dramatics, electricity, and radio announcing, but there were also such offerings as fly-tying and Izaak Walton league for outdoor buffs, cheerleading, and so on. The clubs ranged from being ho-hum to being pretty interesting. Mr. Burrows offered a small ensemble called "The Madrigal Group", and he made sure that we knew to sign up for it. On the school records this was just another club, but to us it was something much more.

In this ensemble we learned a wide variety of songs, many of them show tunes. Later in the year we learned a number of selections from The King and I. Mr. Burrows booked a number of performances, many of them in the daytime, and not just during club time. Somehow Mr. Burrows was always able to get us excused from classes, seemingly with impunity and without any objection.

One time we had sung in the afternoon, and Mr. Burrows was driving four of us home. Since I lived the farthest, I rode the longest. I mentioned to him that during the previous summer I had taken courses at a business school: typing, to help with term papers, and shorthand, to help with taking lecture notes. His response was, "I should think that business would be boring." It was my first indication that he felt that courses outside his areas of interest weren't worth taking. His sights were wide and deep, but they had sharply defined boundaries.

Meanwhile, the full choir worked on another operetta, Carousel. Once again I was cast as a person with hidden strengths. I played the part of Mr. Bascombe, the owner of the mill, who has nothing but disdain for the romances of the young women who work there and live on-site. When he sees Julie Jordan, the main character, out late with the carnival barker Billy Bigelow, he tries to take Julie home to abide by the curfew, but she refuses. He is incredulous but realizes he can do nothing about it. However, in a scene that takes place two years later, he is held up by Billy and his friend Jigger. Immediately, my character pulls out a gun and is in complete command, while the two muggers panic and totally botch things up. (That gun I used on stage was a real one, though the barrel had been plugged. It had belonged to my father, and no one in those days gave a hoot about anyone carrying a gun to school to use for such purposes. How things have changed!)

One day I told Mr. Burrows that I had a dental appointment and could not make the operetta rehearsal. He responded with a muted look of disapproval, which I took to be grudgingly given assent. However, the next day he said, "Frank you were not at rehearsal yesterday."

"I told you I had a dental appointment."
"Don't think you're indispensable, Frank, because you're not."

Later, I found out that he always had this intolerance for dental appointments that conflicted with rehearsals all the time, for everyone. Somehow, we managed to head off such time conflicts by rescheduling the appointments, while still getting our braces tightened in a timely manner. Besides the dental appointments, there was one kind of thing that provoked even greater impatience from him: Bureaucratic directives that cramped his style. Here his temper wasn't moderated by a mentor-like feeling of benevolence. Fortunately, his excellence of teaching usually gave him free reign.

Meanwhile, the rehearsals went on. The plot for Carousel has a nice story line that carries the main characters through an entire generation. The opening carnival scene had a revolving carousel in the right rear corner of the stage. A small portion of the carousel was hidden by a curtain, and two stagehands stood on it there, pressing their hands against the wall and walking at a brisk pace to make it turn. It was a new twist on the concept of a treadmill, and it was very effective indeed, eliciting applause.

Mr. Burrows rehearsed us with the usual meticulousness, and this production went as well as had the one the year before. It was an exquisite rendering of a fine operetta, a little taste of perfection not usually encountered in the ordinary world.

There was another dance called "Burrows' Ball", followed by another time hosting the choir from St. Louis Park. Then it was time for our trip. I have a few vivid memories from this trip.

In one, a few of us had just gotten on the charter bus after a concert. Mr. Burrows was on one of the side seats in front. A few students peppered him with questions, always prefacing them with, "Mr. B., …" When the questions were over, he leaned back in a period of brief respite from the brisk pace. He looked a little weary, but he had a big smile on his face, as though he were enjoying every minute of it.

One of our student hosts, a girl who was seated behind me, leaned forward and asked in a quiet voice, "Who is this Mr. Bee? Is that his real name?" "He is Mr. Burrows, our choir director," I replied.
"He seems to be very well liked."
"He is indeed."

We didn't just perform concerts, however. There was a party for us in the gymnasium of our host school. Someone had brought a record player and a stack of long-playing records. The top one was entitled "An Evening with Belafonte". I liked that singer's voice, but I hoped that they wouldn't be playing Belafonte the entire evening. Later we students were to disperse and go with our host students to do whatever we wanted. Somehow almost all of us ended up at a party at a girl's house. It was an ordinary party, till someone brought out a guitar and started us singing. We did choral pieces, songs from the radio, folk songs, and - toward the last - some bawdy songs. It was a great evening!

There also were guided tours. We went through the Southdale mall, which was the first indoor mall ever constructed, shortly after it had had its grand opening. Seeing all these shops under one roof, with everything looking so clean, we were very impressed. This mall had everything one could possibly want to buy, and then some. They even had a basement where there was a post office and a pet shop that sold dogs, cats, and even monkeys. "Fabulous!" we said.

Another memory of this trip is of waiting for a tour of a General Motors auto plant. We were in the showroom, which had ceramic tile on the walls and ceiling. We had found vending machines and were snacking on peanuts, candy bars, and soda pop, just standing around like any ordinary bunch of tourists - when two bass singers started the first line of the spiritual we had learned, "I'm Gonna Ride in the Chariot." Everyone joined in, and though we were facing in all different directions, we were together in the tempo and the dynamics, having been well rehearsed in this song. The acoustics were excellent, like singing in a giant shower room, and this was one of our best performances. However, with just seven seconds to go before the end of the piece, Mr. Burrows called out, "All right, may I have your attention!" We quieted down, and Mr. Burrows introduced an auto executive who said to us, "You're going to have to stop singing. Don't get me wrong; it's beautiful! However, we are trying to have a meeting, and it's distracting us!" And so we reverted to looking like any other tour group.

The great robe exchange fiasco

Soon we were back at East, ready for our reprise concert for the other students there, which was to begin at 10 o'clock in the morning. I arrived early to get my robe out of the wardrobe closet in the choir room. Let's see…What was my robe number. Seventy-two, I thought. But when I looked, I could find only robes 71 and 73, with no 72 between them. Okay, keep calm, I thought. I did a systematic search from the left to the right. All this time, the other students were getting their robes and departing for the backstage area downstairs.

After one sweep I was starting to get nervous. I seemed to be in what I would call a "tri-lemma", and each of the alternatives would provoke Mr. Burrows' extreme impatience. I couldn't skip the concert, nor could I take someone else's robe, nor could I show up without a robe. Was there a list of the robe assignments on the closet door? No, not on the outside or the inside. On his desk? No, not there. In the shallow middle drawer? I dared not open it. So I did another systematic search, and then another.

By the time I had finished the third search, there were only six robes left, and I was the only one in the choir room. Well, here was robe 27; maybe that was it. Then again, maybe not. Glancing at my watch, I saw that I had only two minutes to get backstage. I'll bet no one else is even coming here for a robe, I thought. So I grabbed robe number 27 and ran out into the hallway, nearly colliding with another singer named Mary Helps. I arrived backstage just as Mr. Burrows was calling the roll. Perfect timing!

The concert went well. Afterwards, we all went to the choir room to hear Mr. Burrows' review of the performance. In large part, he was satisfied, though there were some minor pointers for next year. But then he said to Mary Helps that her black sweater had been a glaring contrast to all the robes. Though Mr. Burrows could get very impatient, I had never seen him light into someone in public like this. Mary replied, "I couldn't find my robe."

"It was right there in the closet!"
"No, it wasn't!"
"Maybe it was just out of sequence, then."
"But there were only five robes in there."
"Did you take it home to have it cleaned?"
I could stay silent no longer and said, "I may have had her robe."
"Frank, yours is number 72, not 27!"
"Well, that's what I had thought, but when I looked for it…"
"Never mind, I think we've pursued this far enough."

He did one of his classic eye-rolls, magnificent even without any jowls. He then looked as though he had an idea. "Very well, I will post a list of the robe numbers for each concert next year." And with that he finished his evaluation.

Later, outside in the hall, I apologized to Mary. She said, "That's okay, but I'm really miffed that he talked to me in public that way!" At that point another student, Judy Larson, came up and said that she had had my robe. "I couldn't find my robe, either," she said. How far back that chain extended is anyone's guess.

The "experimental" class in English and history

Almost unnoticed in all the foregoing activity was an offering of a new course for 11th graders the next year. Construction on Ordean Junior High was nearly completed, and the following year East would be for the first time a three-year school rather than a six-year school. With this came lighter teaching schedules, and Mr. Burrows decided on a lark to use this opportunity to try a new course. The 11th grade English and history courses covered the same places and times in America, so why not combine them into a two-hour course? The principal Mr. Mitchell readily agreed, and rising juniors began signing up for it. As a rising senior, I had already taken the two courses separately, so this was only in the background of my thoughts. As it happened, this experimental class was timely.

His first skirmish with bureaucracy

For several years, Mr. Burrows had been a member of Pilgrim Congregational Church, where he was its choir director. This environment was suited to him in three ways: First, the congregation had a strong interest in fine music, and they gave him complete freedom to exercise his artistic perfectionism and to choose the music as he saw fit. Secondly, Congregationalism appealed to his sense of history. This denomination had originated with the Pilgrims and Puritans, and education was a priority early on. They founded Yale, Princeton, and Brown Universities, among others, many of these starting as theological seminaries. Thirdly, he liked the mode of governance within the denomination. Each local church was a self-contained democracy, with its own constitution determining the election of officers, term limits, and so on. There was never any interference from the denominational hierarchy, if indeed it could even be called a hierarchy. Actually, it was more of a loose federation. In short the word Congregational meant that the local congregation called the shots.

Earlier in the 20th century, Congregationalism had merged with a small sect called "The Christian Churches". They had chosen this very generic name because they too placed little emphasis on denominational ties or directives. This merger had gone through with no big waves, not even a ripple - yet. However, in 1957 the Congregational/Christian churches merged with the Evangelical and Reformed Churches - called "E and R" for short, with the word and denoting a previous merger on that side too. This time, there was an uproar.

The protesters were bothered by three things. First, this was too much centralization, this merger of two denominations, each of which was a product of a prior merger. Secondly, the "E and R" side appeared to have stronger control from the denominational hierarchy, and it was feared that local autonomy might be lost. Thirdly, the fact that this merger was foisted on them from the top, rather than coming from the grass roots, did not bode well for the future in this new denomination (which was named the United Church of Christ, or UCC for short).

Pilgrim Church in Duluth was split about 50-50 in its opinion on this issue, and after much contention half the membership resigned, including Mr. Burrows. Naturally, he also resigned from the director's post. Bureaucratic directives made him see red, and we will see three other clashes between him and bureaucracies later. Meanwhile, another year was starting at East, with everything normal on that front.

Senior year, and another club offering

This year the club offering was for an ensemble of 13 men, to be called "The Baker's Dozen". Again, we covered a wide range of musical material. For example, I remember singing "Stout-hearted Men" with gusto. One of the members, Jerry Plumb, had organized men's barbershop quartets with Mr. Ekstrom in previous years, and he wanted to arrange another quartet this year, to do the same kind of music. Mr. Burrows said that he had no interest in barbershop music but would be happy to direct and accompany such a quartet using show tunes. In fact, he liked the idea so much that he set up a second quartet, to be called "The Modernaires". I was one of its members.

At first, the two quartets seemed evenly matched, but then Bob Devlin came in to replace the top tenor in Jerry's quartet. Bob had an expressive, lyrical voice, and his group began to sound quite good. I admit that I felt a little envious. However, I was soon drafted to be the piano player for Jerry's quartet. So I was a member of The Modernaires for about two weeks, but the other quartet, newly named The Ramblers, was so successful that I stayed there a much longer time.

The reason I had been drafted as a piano player is that the quartet members wanted to do some contemporary songs, and Mr. Burrows would have none of it. The song, "The Eyes of God", was about the stars representing God's protection and influence, but Mr. Burrows dismissed it, saying, "That's blasphemy!" He wasn't too impressed with our arrangement of "Unchained Melody", which had been done by one of our classmates. As for "In the Still of the Nite" (sic), he originally confused this with the 1930's song, "In the Still of the Night". When he found out that this was a doo-wop song as sung by Fred Paris and the Five Satins, he winced. His horizons, though broad, had absolute boundaries.

Maybe Mr. Burrows had something there, though. I don't know about the blasphemy, but "The Eyes of God" has been shown by history to be one of the best forgotten songs of the '50's. Though it had good lyrics, melody lines, and harmony, it never really caught on. Oldies radio shows never play it. There have always been many fine songs contending for the Golden Dustbin awards. As for "Unchained Melody", we did drop that arrangement and instead used the chording that came with the printed sheet music. So Mr. Burrows may have been right for two out of the three songs. But "In the Still of the Nite" - now that was a good song!

Our first performance under the new name Ramblers was at the Jewish recreational center. "South of the Border" was okay, and "Unchained Melody" was tepid. However, our final number, "Blue Moon", was very successful, due in large part to Bob's expressive crooning voice, which especially got to the girls. After that performance we immediately adopted "Blue Moon" as our signature song. This song was to be the lone holdover from the Burrows era, but nonetheless the best. We soon developed a good repertoire and an active itinerary for our concerts.

Meanwhile, I wanted to sign up for driver's training, but the only time available conflicted with choir class every Wednesday. I asked Mr. Burrows if he minded if I were absent on Wednesdays for 12 weeks, not knowing what his reaction would be. I remembered how he felt about skipping operetta rehearsals. However, he agreed to it immediately. Obviously, choir classes were different from operetta rehearsals.

Speaking of operettas, the one this year was Oklahoma! I had a smaller part this year, as the sheriff Cord Elam, but I did have some lines and a brief singing role too. Again, the production was a huge success.

In the months that followed, Mr. Burrows had already chosen the operetta for the following year. It would be The King and I (in its full-blown production), and he had already tapped Jerry Plumb and Mary Helps to play the lead roles.

One day I was chatting with an 11th grader who was taking the English/history course with Mr. Burrows, and I asked her what it was like. She said that it was well worth taking, though he worked them very hard. There was a lot of emphasis on map-making. The course was going very well, but whether it would be offered the next year was still up in the air.

Our last choir trip

This year we went to West Allis, Wisconsin, a suburb of Milwaukee. In preparation for this, Mr. Burrows held rehearsals after school hours. In the two choir classes combined, he had about 100 students, and not all could go on the trip; seniors were favored, since this was their last chance for such a trip. Larry Stingl, who was a junior, was not among those chosen to go on the trip, but his girlfriend Carol Ruble was going, so Larry went to the rehearsals even though uninvited. Mr. Burrows always let him stay but said he could not promise anything. He was impressed with Larry's faithful attendance, and when another singer came down with the German measles, Larry was told that he could go along.

This was the last, the longest, and the best field trip from my public school years, and I remember it especially well. We occupied two train cars, going first to Minneapolis and then taking "the Milwaukee 400", which was so named (we were told) because it took about 400 minutes to get from Minneapolis to Milwaukee. We kidded that the name came from its making 400 stops. When we were about halfway there, one of our party became ill. It was Larry, and he had red spots all over his face and neck. So he had to get off at the next station and take other trains to get back to Duluth. Carol was understandably upset and concerned about him, but she stayed on board.

Later on the train, Jerry, Bob, and I decided to do some Ramblers harmonizing. We found three vacant seats, one beside Carol, who was napping, and two in front of her. We did Everly Brothers tunes, crooning over the clacking wheels. Later that evening at our host school, when I danced with Carol, she said that the singing had been wonderfully soothing, just what she had needed at the time. I was impressed by this feedback on our quartet's ability to move our listeners in subtle ways.

The concert the next morning at our host school went well. We were feeling the freshness of the new surroundings. In these concerts, the Ramblers were included, even though Mr. Burrows was no longer directing the group and didn't care much for most of the songs we did. He accompanied "Blue Moon", and then I went down to the piano to accompany "In the Still of the Nite" (sic). The entire concert went very well, and after each song, Mr. Burrows would discreetly flash us the "OK" sign.

The next evening at a party in a schoolroom that had a small stage at one end, the Ramblers sang more songs from their repertoire. The only problem I had was that some stagehand had put a wad of chewing gum between the E and F keys in the octave above high C, but by switching octaves, I could still make things work. Also, I was separated from the singers by an immovable curtain, though we could hear each other. At one point, though, they radically changed the tempo of "Blue Moon"; they had forgotten to tell me about that change in pace. However, I soon adjusted; the performance went well.

The next morning we sang at a neighboring school. I have a vivid memory of a morning concert in the auditorium. Some of us had been partying the night before and were not fully awake. Mr. Burrows blew the pitch pipe for the next song, but when we started singing, we were in four different keys. He continued directing us for a few measures, hoping the dissonance would resolve itself, but it didn't. So he mouthed the word, "Stop!", then blew the pitch pipe a second time, and this time we were all together. At the end of this song, though, he didn't flash the usual "OK" sign.

We returned to Duluth on an overnight train, with the boys in one car and the girls in an adjacent car. Every 20 minutes or so, Mr. Burrows would walk through both cars, still smiling a greeting to those who were still awake, while his beard stubble became more pronounced as the night progressed. There was no privacy for the amorous under his watch. There wasn't much sleep either, at least not in our car, since two boys called out to each other from opposite ends of the car until five o'clock, just to try to keep everyone else awake. They always waited until Mr. Burrows had gone into the girls' car, and they had it perfectly timed as to how long it would take him to walk down the aisle and back.

It finally got quiet around 5:15 A.M on the car in our train, but then the curfew was lifted, and people (including other travelers not in our party) began walking through, chatting normally. We had breakfast in a café near a train station, and my classmate Charlotte said that the girls' car had been very quiet, though a conductor had disturbed them one time when he came in to turn on the baseboard heating.

Back on the train, I sat next to a brunette and started a conversation with her, but then something out the window caught her attention. We all did a lot of window gazing on such long trips. I stared glassy-eyed at the poles zipping by, almost hypnotized by them. It appeared that the poles were moving and that we were not. The next thing I knew, I was slowly coming out of a deep hibernation, just barely aware of the girl's voice saying, "Welcome back." I reached for the seat back ahead of me to pull myself fully upright and in the process put my left index finger in someone's eye. Soon, though, I had revived enough to enjoy the last couple of hours of this, the best field trip ever.

As usual, after returning, we had a reprise concert or two in the East auditorium, and then it was almost time for graduation. It had been a good six years, including a glorious five years with him. But now we turned in a flurry to other rewarding things: the class play, the German measles, the prom, the awards assembly, "senior skip day", final exams, and graduation. Little did we know that Mr. Burrows was up against a major challenge, in fact a crisis. However, he was adept at changing a crisis into an opportunity.

The second encounter with bureaucracy

The superintendent of music issued an order that no non-credit music groups were to meet during school hours. I don't know the details. However, this kind of order seemed to go against what this superintendent believed in. He had visited our choir classes on some occasions, and we had sung under his direction in an all-city choir. He had a vital interest in the promotion of music in the school system. Maybe he was encountering pressure from somewhere in that school system.

Whatever the details were, we know that Mr. Burrows and this superintendent had a head-to-head confrontation, with the result that Mr. Burrows resigned as a music teacher. However, he had an alternative proposal for our principal Mr. Mitchell. He wanted to teach courses in English, history, and English/history full-time. Mr. Mitchell readily agreed. Thus ended a distinguished career in music and history, and thus began another equally distinguished career teaching English and history.

Goodbye, or maybe not

At the start of my college freshman year, I thought that I would be leaving behind the fun of singing with that quartet that he and Jerry had founded, the Ramblers. I also thought that I would be leaving behind the privilege of singing in a choir under his direction. As it turned out, I was wrong on both counts. I shall cover each of these in turn.

Just before Labor Day, I was asked to attend one more rehearsal of the Ramblers, to train the new guy on the piano, so I agreed. At this rehearsal I also ended up training another guy who was replacing the vocal bass singer who was away at college. Also, Don Gessner came in to replace the second tenor who had been skipping too many rehearsals. Finally, the bass singer had brought along his cousin who played the string bass, and this was recognized as a welcome addition. The new composition of the group had great potential, but it was a high school group, and I was ready for college activities.

The Ramblers' battle with bureaucracy

The quartet sang at a school dance at East that fall, and they received five dollars in compensation. The principal, Mr. Mitchell, heard of this and called them into his office. This was big trouble; high school organizations were prohibited from earning a profit. After this confrontation, the Ramblers held a meeting and decided that they really didn't need to be affiliated with the high school at all. The Ramblers would cease to exist, and in their place would be a group called The Four Counts - who just happened to be the same singers with the same repertoire.

Actually, it wasn't quite the same singers, for they wanted me back in the group, and I readily accepted. It turned out to be quite an active year, with a lot of performance engagements. However, the continuation of this story line gets us away from Mr. Burrows and from East, so I will let it go until the paths converge later on.

Under his direction again

Let us return to the Labor Day weekend as my college life began, to pick up the second story line, singing in a choir at Lakeside Presbyterian Church. The Sunday before Labor Day, there was a routine announcement in our church bulletin saying that choir members should report for rehearsal at 7:30 the next Thursday evening. When Bob Devlin and I showed up, there was Mr. Burrows sitting near the director's chair, conversing with another singer. He had nothing of the eager nervousness of an amateur director; rather he was in a state of repose born of the confidence in his experience. Once the rehearsal started, he was fully in charge, as exacting as ever, and with results to show for it.

For the second rehearsal, there were more choir members than usual, including Don and Jerry, my Rambler friends. Don and Jerry had no affiliation with our church, and yet they came to sing under Mr. Burrows' direction! I marveled at the drawing power of this master director.

One of our best anthems was entitled "Thee We Adore", a beautiful Anglican chant written in 5/4 time. After one rehearsal, Mr. Burrows had it rendered to exquisite perfection, and the subtlety of our performance on Sunday was spellbinding, with the usual motionless pause at the end. However, one choir singer complained to him afterwards that she didn't want to sing Catholic songs. He pointed out that it was Anglican, not Catholic, but she was not mollified. She resigned from the choir in a huff and complained to the music committee. However, the success of our singing under Mr. Burrows' directing was unquestionable, and we did two large choral works at Christmas and Easter time, which was a great experience for all of us singers.

During this time, Mr. Burrows came to all the choir socials and was a good mixer, but he didn't step outside of his role as choir director. During the sermons he always sat impassively with his face in neutral, and we couldn't tell whether he agreed or disagreed with anything. He seemed not to feel at home at our church, except within his own domain. However, he seemed not to be experiencing any discomfort either.

His third confrontation with bureaucracy

Toward the end of this my freshman year, Mr. Burrows was informed that his contract at our church would not be renewed for the following year. Two women on the music committee, who were sisters of each other, held a lot of political power in our church. They didn't like some of the music that he chose, and when they told him what kind of music he should be using, he responded, by their account, with rudeness and condescension. The choir members felt that letting him go was all so pointless!

Mr. Burrows received an offer to be choir director at the Duluth Congregational Church, which consisted mainly of those who had resigned from Pilgrim Church because of the denominational issue. This new church had no denominational ties whatsoever, and it was a very good fit for Mr. Burrows; he was to stay there a long time. Meanwhile, our new choir director at church was to be Mr. Harry Meyer, who also taught choir at Central. Harry was a member of our church, and he had a more laid-back disposition. We already knew that he was a very good director, since he had held the interim director's position before Mr. Burrows was hired, and he had organized the high school and college students into a choir, ensembles, and duets. No, we wouldn't be hurting - but my days under the direction of the great master were over. His influence lived on.

Mr. Burrows was quickly establishing himself as much of a master in English as he was in vocal music. At one point, though, the teachers got word of a team from the Board of Education that would be evaluating the qualifications of the public school teachers in Duluth. Everyone wondered who might be affected.

The fourth confrontation with bureaucracy

This evaluation team concluded that Mr. Burrows was not qualified to teach English or history because he had never taken education courses on how to teach those subjects. They also targeted Mrs. Jean Davis, whom we met ten years earlier as the hostess of the square dances. She taught Spanish, and she was the first to introduce the Duluth schools to the method of using tape recorders - what we now call the language lab. The evaluation team said that she was not qualified to teach languages because she lacked half a credit in practice teaching. To paraphrase the old adage with the carpentry metaphor: "If your toolbox only contains a hammer, then everything outside the box looks like a nail."

I don't know how Mrs. Davis handled the matter, but Mr. Burrows got into a pitched battle with the Board of Education over this one. Eventually he gave in and enrolled in evening classes, so that he could "learn to teach English and history".

From then on it was clear sailing for Mr. Burrows. My cousin Betsy Dohm took one of his history courses. She said that it was a wonderful experience, but that it was a lot of work. They went on a field trip to Washington D.C. For more information on this period of Mr. Burrows' life, I refer you to other contributions to this website.

Eventually, of his own volition, Mr. Burrows retired from teaching in the public schools, going on to teach six hours a week at UMD. One of these classes was to culminate in a three-week tour of the great culture centers in Europe. Shortly before the tour was to take place, he was at a graduation ceremony receiving an honorary doctorate. This was the epitome of his long and distinguished career.

Resistance from within

It was during this ceremony when the insistent chest pains began. He lasted through the ceremony, then drove to the hospital. It was a heart attack, and he had to reconcile himself with trading a three-week tour of Europe for the four walls of a hospital room. The students took the trip without him; everything had been set up, and they couldn't get complete refunds anyway.

At first his recovery was slow, until an astute nurse realized that one of his medications was affecting him adversely. He then made a good recovery and resumed his teaching duties at UMD.

A conversation with him

In September 1982 I got married in New Jersey, and my mother organized a second wedding reception in Duluth, scheduled for the day after our return from a honeymoon up the north shore. Mr. Burrows was at this reception.

He looked pretty much as I had remembered him in those earlier years before he gained weight, even a bit trimmer perhaps. His back was as straight as always, and he looked fit. However, there were red circles around his eyes, which I had not seen before - except for that overnight train trip when he patrolled the aisles every twenty minutes. He mostly stood near the refreshment table and didn't mingle too much. Being a lifelong bachelor, he may not have identified with weddings too much. However, I had the feeling that he had made a small psychological retreat since the heart attack had narrowed the possibilities in his world.

I expressed to him what an influence he had been on my life, and how I was still very much active in music. His response was a bit flat, the briefest nod. I realized that he had no doubt heard such comments many times, but also, he seemed to have less capacity for joy than I remembered from the early years.

I told him that my wife had been born and raised in New York, and he confided, "Someone very dear to me once lived in New York." I responded with a look that accepted this rare glimpse into his past private life. He then turned to take two more Lorna Doone cookies off a silver plate, saying "Mm, those cookies are good; I think I'll have some more!" He sipped his coffee briefly.

He asked about my career, remembering that I had earned a Ph.D. in philosophy and had taught at several colleges. I gave some details, and he nodded with interest. Then he asked, "Where are you teaching now?" and I had to tell him that since the baby boomers had passed their college years, the job market was so tight that I had had to switch careers. When I said that I was a computer programmer, that brought out the gruff, uncompromising crusader in him. He said how he despised those mindless computer games.

"I don't do anything with that," I replied. "This work is for an insurance company." "I should think that business would be boring." "Well, I would find accounting or sales to be boring, but programming is different; it's like math," I said with a look of avid interest. "I should think that math would be boring too."

I then brought up the subject of text editors, and how they help in preparing scholarly papers, so that a small insertion does not require extensive retyping. He replied, "Well, as far as I'm concerned, playing those mindless computer games is all there is to know about computers; it is all there ever will be to know about computers; and is all that anyone would ever want to know about computers!"

I left it at that, with the realization that his own world had been very rich, perhaps richer than it could have been without the absolute boundaries. He never got to see the Internet, and how it can aid scholarly research. Nor did he get to meet college English majors like my daughter, who are required to prepare and submit papers on-line, and required to look at hand-outs, reading lists, and actual literature on-line. It is paradoxical that this very website focuses on him, perpetuating his influence and the memories of him. I think he would have appreciated it, however.

After the above conversation had occurred at the reception, Mr. Burrows chatted with Dr. Ed Cowles, who had been my research advisor in chemistry at UMD. Dr. Cowles's daughter, Mary Kathryn, had been in his classes, so they had that in common to talk about, as well as their teaching experiences. Meanwhile, I circulated among the other guests. Later, as some of the guests were leaving, Mr. Burrows said to Dr. Cowles, "Say hello to Mary Carol!" Oh, well; he must have had about 3,000 students.

Six years later, in 1988, my East class of '58 had its 30th year reunion, and we heard that Mr. Burrows might be attending. Though confined to a wheelchair, he had an attendant and was mobile enough. However, we never got to see him. Mrs. Paulson, my geometry teacher, did attend, though, and in my speech I teased her for giving me those 17 geometry assignments to do in one weekend. After the speech, she said to me that grading all those assignments took time too.

Encore for The Counts

This vocal group, which Mr. Burrows and Jerry Plumb had originated, had another reunion in August 1989. With sheet music and records to refresh our memories, we sounded as good as ever. Don's wife suggested that we book ourselves for the East '59 reunion that night, so we did. Our signature song was still "Blue Moon", the one holdover from the first few months when Mr. Burrows directed the group - some 31 years earlier. The performance was on the upper level of the old train depot, which had been converted to a museum. The acoustics were perfect, and we had a receptive audience, including our wives. After it was over, we expressed interest in doing this again some time.

Our baritone Jerry Plumb had kept a list of all our performances in a little spiral notebook. I took that list and added my recollections, making a story out of it. Copies went out to all the members of the group, their parents, and to Mr. Burrows.

The last contact

A couple of years later, my mother was visiting Jerry Plumb's mother in her condo on Park Point. Since Mr. Burrows lived in the same complex, they walked over to visit with him. Though infirm, he welcomed them with a warm smile and a firm handshake. Among other things, he said, "I read Frank's diary with interest." My mother did not find it necessary to say that most of it had been written fairly recently. I am glad that he had this feedback on the music group, which he had helped to form so many years earlier.

In that reunion of our music group, Bud, our string bass player, had been ailing - though no one could have known it from his strong, resonant bass singing voice. Jerry, too, was ailing, though his baritone came through loud and clear. With the loss of Bud, Jerry, and Mr. Burrows, the laying down of new memories came to an end.

His legacy

Mr. Burrows certainly was a good mentor figure in my life. Even though music has always been a part-time activity for me, I have never been able to leave it alone for very long. I have sung in church choirs, directed choirs, taught piano and organ, and substituted as organist (keyboardist, actually) at my church. Also, for about seven years I sang with a pop ensemble similar to The Counts. The spirit of Mr. Burrows has pervaded all these activities.

Yes, Mr. Burrows' influence lives on indirectly, in the lives of those of us who were his students, and in turn, on those whom we influence. We may not influence as many as he did, but everything counts. It has been my pleasure to contribute to this website some of the timeless images of this great man. In this domain he lives on.

Here he still sips coffee at the wedding reception, takes two more Lorna Doone cookies from the silver plate, and expounds on the utter depravity of anything having to do with computers. He rehearses an anthem in his perfectionist way. He sits on the tour bus answering a barrage of student questions, then leans back with an exhausted smile on his face. He gives stage directions for an operetta. And at the square dance in the recreation center with the yellow stucco walls, he dances in our square with complete ease, wearing his checkered suit - forever energetic, and forever capable of delight.

Once again we stand in the layered semicircle in the hallway at Lakeside School, seeing him direct his boys' choir in singing Christmas carols. They stand in front of the decorated tall evergreen tree, with its lights aglow. We stand transfixed by the beauty of the season. Then after seven songs - all too soon - he has them hold a pose to let the mood sink completely in. Gradually, he lowers his arms, the boys turn and slowly file out, to retrieve their jackets and depart.

Reluctantly, we go back up the solid wooden staircase to the second floor. The stairway is crowded, but even so, we are the first to re-enter the classroom. There is just enough time to look out the window for a moment or two. Below, the last student boards the orange bus. Seeing us in the window, Mr. Burrows, gives us a wave, then he too boards the bus. After a moment's pause, presumably to let everyone get settled, the bus starts up, goes down the avenue, and disappears from view.

We can let Mr. Burrows and his students go, for now. They can be called back with a few clicks of a mouse button.

Frank T. Lewis, Duluth East Class of 1958

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