The congressman said, Mrs. Merriweather, I played third trumpet for your husband in 1996. I was the kid who could not read music until Mr. Merriweather sat with me after school for a month. You tell me they want his name off that hall.
I told him about the superintendent and the pound cake, the two-million-dollar donor, the plaque going into storage.
They cannot, he said. In 1996, after your husband marched those kids in the Macy’s parade, the benefactor who paid for that trip gave the district an endowment, on one written condition. Any music facility the district ever built would carry James Merriweathers name, in perpetuity. It is in the agreement. A new donor does not get to buy away a promise the district already made and already took the money for.
The letter under the felt lining of James old baton case was that agreement, on district letterhead, 1996.
The superintendent said sentiment does not pay for tubas, and a promise the district signed thirty years ago said his name stays on that door forever.
The congressman made a single phone call, and then sent the district a copy of the 1996 agreement with a letter of his own. The renaming was off the table by the end of the month. The two-million-dollar donor was offered the lobby instead, and took it.
James name is still on the music hall at Central High. The bronze plaque is still by the door. And the kids still touch it for luck before every concert, the way they have since the day they put it up, for the man who taught a boy with no ear to march in a parade.