Longtime and legendary music teacher Calvin Statham schools Nestor on the love of children along with his Holabird Junior High classmate Dr. Ingrid Kohlstadt, who brought out the love for their teacher. Mr. Statham invested in every one of “his children” for five decades at Holabird and Pikesville and beyond.
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
ingrid, piano, calvin, stadium, children, called, play, wife, remember, shows, people, real, friends, talking, stephanie, stayed, lady, night, lottery, knew
SPEAKERS
Ingrid Kohlstadt, Calvin Statham, Nestor Aparicio
Nestor Aparicio 00:00
Welcome back. WNS, G Towson Baltimore and Baltimore positive we are positively truck city amongst friends today. I got my Maryland lottery scratch offs. I got a handful of friends here. We’ve been giving these away. We’ve been doing that to all month long in the April’s 50th anniversary for the Maryland lottery. Give them some love our friends at window nations well 866 90 nation you buy two you get two free and you get 24 months free financing. So Mr. Stadium is here. He may not let him in. Oh, scratch off. Yes, you
Calvin Statham 00:29
know, I want to make sure that these are real.
Nestor Aparicio 00:32
Real. This one’s not real. This is the 50th anniversary 50. Now this is a sample but these are real. Well, he was gonna go last
Ingrid Kohlstadt 00:39
time I played the lottery. I I did my turn my card and I looked down at my feet there was a penny it was a side up and sitting God we trust. I wound up I never 120 bucks. I’m
Nestor Aparicio 00:56
gonna try to have 21 I’d even go out on
00:59
the Indian reservations where I work this past time. I thought maybe I’d have my moment. But cutting, cutting, cutting just a winter.
Nestor Aparicio 01:13
Cold shot. I’m gonna give the full story in a moment. But Calvin stadium is here. This is my hollyburn These are my people. We’re in Dundalk. We’re a drug city. I grew up a mile and a quarter from here in Colgate. And I’ve been shopping here my whole life. In seventh grade, the first day of seventh grade. It was like sort of revelational for me, like nobody prepared me. My parents didn’t explain to me about getting on a bus and changing class. Like, literally I was lost. Like I showed up some grade. I didn’t know what I was doing. I wasn’t afraid or anything. But I was like, I didn’t know where to go where to stand. I didn’t know about moving classes. I didn’t know about 45 minute periods. I didn’t know about any of this stuff. But I came in and Ingrid was in my my homeroom. So Stephanie who’s in the room right now. And I had the worst crush on her Calshot in seventh grade the first girl ever had a crush on and she’s gone on to be this like, incredible character in my life. Because I had a friend of mine in an article right now putting pictures of penguins and stuff up. And Ingram went on to become a doctor and you live in Annapolis. I just wanted to give you before I bring you into this crazy conversation. He starts making fun of you too, because you’re about to get in your bath. You’re about to get crushed. You don’t know you’re getting crushed today. Tell everybody about yourself a little bit because you’re a doctor and you want to marry. I mean, you went off on this journey and you wound up back here because you were in Florida for a long time. Right?
02:35
I was all over the world. I traveled seven continents. And it’s like the Velveteen Rabbit you know that book? No, as it’s a children’s story, and there are these toys on the shelf and they’re talking with each other can get sick from infectious condition, rubella, measles or something. And all the animals kind of in the toys have to go. And the toys are talking among themselves. This was like way precursor to Toy Story. And I do remember this, they said that the Velveteen Rabbit was like you couldn’t be fragile. You couldn’t have rough edges. You couldn’t break easily to be real. And Dundalk, of course is my real anchor. This is my real place. You can hide in Dundalk. You know, you tried to hide between this new hair style. But you can back that I
Nestor Aparicio 03:41
died. That’s it? No, it’s all it’s all good. Welcome. It’s good to have you. So he
03:46
asked me far from Dundalk because there’s Dundalk people everywhere
Nestor Aparicio 03:50
everywhere. Absolutely. In fact, I
Calvin Statham 03:53
invited a member of I have a run a charity for nutrition for kids. And I invited me to my board members and one of my board members. and I were talking and your name came up because he’s an art teacher, and your music teacher. And he goes kaufen stayed on bed. He stayed up the stadium singers, Mrs. Ward, and he just started talking all this Turner’s station spirit point stuff, and I knew my feet were on solid ground. I knew I couldn’t hide and I knew I was real. You know, I go to a lot of virtual meetings now in the virtual meetings, they work. And I really think Why do virtual meetings do work for me? Oh, well, they’re convenient. I can be my pajamas. But I realized that there was something about it, virtual meetings or work in for professionals, because every place you go is more or less the same. It’s all generic, so it doesn’t matter if you’re there or not. cuz everything standard in the same but Dundalk is different drug city
Nestor Aparicio 05:05
I want to tell I told somebody I told Steve la today but because people outside of talking there have been the drug city and this is like a unique place there’s no other place like drugs city you know Dundalk has cool stuff. I want to just tell when
05:17
I was when I was in drugs city I couldn’t order the drink that I ordered today in
Nestor Aparicio 05:24
Anchorage getting fresh, it just didn’t happen and Oliver and 79 months ago I’m watching TV with my wife I guess I probably watching football. And a My Fair Lady ad came on TV and it was playing at the Hippodrome. And I said to Genesis, man, my fair lady is like one of the great, cool things I did in my life was I was in My Fair Lady. And I always tell my wife, and there’s no video of it. There’s very few pictures. I Jeff cram, I think fancy pictures that he was going to send up to me as well. And he played the lead. He played Henry Higgins in it. So two months ago, my fair lady and I said to Jen, do you want to go? And she’s like, Yeah, sure. And we were like shows, we’ll go down and see it. We saw wicked, you know, we’ll go see something. And I said, I wonder what Mr. stadium’s doing. I wonder if I could take him with me if I could find him. So Patrick, is your son is my Facebook friend. And I’ve been trying to track him down for years. So I ran into Mr. Stain and with my mother, when my wife was in the hospital and firm with leukemia back in, I guess it was 15 or 16. And that time, because my wife wasn’t with me, because my wife would have remembered him because he’s a force of nature, right? So I saw him and I said, We got to get together. We got to get together. My wife Hospital Cancer, hope to keep her alive. She’s here. She’s beautiful. It’s good. But we never saw it shows with my mother. And then my mother died. And we never got together and I called you. And you stonewalled me stadium. And we didn’t get together a couple three years ago. And I said, Alright, I’m gonna call and so I called you and tell everybody the hard time you gave me I’m older. So all of that going on. So I get him in and Maura Piper and Jerry Piper saved me and my wife on the crabcake tour to go with their boat and St. Michael’s and put us up COVID, free in the middle of the plague. And they jumped on my Facebook and I told you we talked about you on a boat that night having late night beers on a boat and St. Michael’s during the storm. We’re just out on the boat, their dog. It’s summertime. And Calvin stayed in Jerry’s off cow. I love Calvin. I’m like, All right. So it hit me that they knew you well enough to Krang you, you know like to grant so I called Loris. We’re gonna double team stadium. And we’re gonna get him down to my fair lady. So Laura is like Jerry, I’ll pick them up. And I’m like, I’ll buy tickets. So I bought five tickets. Were down in there. I got three in the four in the fourth row on the edge. And one in the back. My wife went sat in the back and four of us sat together. And we went down that night. And I this is true, Ingrid. There’s a reason you’re sitting here. He and I started getting together. He’s not drinking, I’m drinking my wife drink. And she drank and I’m drinking. And he’s being funny. And we started talking about my fair lady. And he said, member Stephanie, pal, do you remember ginkgo Kosha. And I’m like, yeah, they’re on my Facebook. And I was pinging Stephanie. From the club room down at the mechanic. I’m like, I’m going to drag Calvin out and do a show with him. And then at some point, I said to him, If we grab you after the show take you out to play the piano. Would you play the piano? He said, I’ll play it all night. That’s when you said, you said I’ll play it all night. I must have been no, no, no, no, no. So that’s how we got here. And I, I looked at my phone for Ingrid’s number. And I’m like, I don’t have insurance number. I was trying to find you because he asked specifically about you. So I am glad that I got to bring the two of you together. And I’m glad that you stopped your medical practice for a couple of hours to come up here. But tell everybody about this guy. Ingrid. What do people need to know about this guy?
08:57
Be careful.
Nestor Aparicio 09:01
What do you remember about this guy? Be careful.
09:04
You’re the person who taught me something before I knew I needed to know it. Okay. All right.
Nestor Aparicio 09:13
Well, you played the piano, right?
09:15
I do. Not so well.
Nestor Aparicio 09:19
When you were 10 years old, 11 years old. Right.
Calvin Statham 09:22
She played for me. That’s one of the things I remember. But in Grade Two, she played for me one day, you did know
Nestor Aparicio 09:30
how many children in your world like in Greek came in at seventh grade eighth grade sixth grade later on, and could play the piano that you had talented musicians before?
Calvin Statham 09:40
No, not not too many. But there was some I had one name Kathy. Hispanic, I think was her name if I’m not mistaken. And Kathy played for me when she was seventh grade, I believe. And she played pretty well. She really did. She played pretty well. Then I had some who cook bid play very well. And I will let them play. You see, I encourage them to play and encourage them to do this teacher in you know, I know that. But I mean, I did encourage them to to play. And some of them I’m sure still probably playing, you know, if it’s not if it’s only for recreational purposes, just to relax yourself. But I’m gonna be honest with you. There’s one instrument I would never have in my home. And it’s called the piano. Why? I played it so long. I’m serious that I just never wanted the piano. News work? No, no,
Nestor Aparicio 10:46
you had to go to school to play it. You didn’t want to play it at the house.
Calvin Statham 10:49
Right? I played it at school. I played it at church. Every time we had company, our parents. And I was the last one left at home. And that was kind of embarrassing to me. My father of like I said, he wasn’t musician, cab, and I want you to come play for our guests. So of course, you had to go in and play the piano and you had to pretend that you really was enjoying it. But I really was not enjoying it. But I pretended in the hand, I played this and that and that. And then when you playing for older people, they didn’t want to hear some of the music that I was playing at the time. So they wanted to hear religious music. And of course I
Nestor Aparicio 11:44
brought this thanks to my son for this.
Calvin Statham 11:47
I would play something like that. And and the grown ups would say you didn’t look down at your hands. I said, No, I didn’t. What How did you do that? I said my sister. She taught me start where you want to start after that. Feel it? Feel it? There you go. Now you’re getting it. That’s exactly
Nestor Aparicio 12:11
what’s missing a finger so I can.
Calvin Statham 12:14
And I listened to Ingrid saying talking about Dundalk people. Now I’m gonna tell you some more stories, which are true. I was on Disneyland stage, the Golden Horseshoe theatre. And all of a sudden, with the Clara Ward singers, out of the balcony, it stayed. I couldn’t get over it to save my life. I mean, they yelled stadium, and they were there visiting Disney World Disneyland in California. And of course, after the show, they came up to see me. Now I’m gonna be very honest, I sort of got used to omen and I have to sort of feel my way to find out who they are. And of course I do that. I have had a little way of doing that. And so I did eventually recognize them. Sometimes I recognize very well. And then sometimes not not as well as I used to. But that was one time and my wife was from Detroit, Michigan. And we were in a shopping mall in Detroit. I heard it again, it stayed. And Madeline said there’s another one of yours.
Nestor Aparicio 13:34
That’s a Dundalk coming in.
Calvin Statham 13:38
But it’s true. It is true. It is really true. And I mean they don’t forget you either. They don’t forget you, my my my children. I have to say this for all of you. They really have made me feel loved one it and everything else. And it’s it was just just a pleasure to teach a pleasure to teach the children. I mean, and they weren’t my I’m gonna say it again because I never said enough. They were my children. I loved them. They were my children. And Madeline tells me all the time, like I told you before, Calvin, they are grown. They have children of their own. They have their parents and I said but still. I’m not trying to interfere with the parents. I’m not trying to interfere with the children. I just want them to know that they are still macho,
Nestor Aparicio 14:35
I feel 12 years old.
Calvin Statham 14:37
That’s that’s the way I treated them. And I mean, what more can I say? Love is love and I don’t care who knows it. I love my children. And at the time I came to holla Bert, like I said it was an unusual situation. It was a very unusual situation. In a way I was frightened. I was one of my kind. They’re the only one of my time there. You see teaching, but my children, my children, that’s when I started calling them my children. And I mean that they made me a teacher. They made me a teacher. And I love him until this day, any of the children I get choked up just talking about him. But any child that I have taught one thing they can say, Mr. State, I’m trying to do the right thing by children. But Mr. Stadium also wanted to discipline his children. But Mr. Stadium was always made proud by his children. So you see, I have so much to be thankful for. Lots of teachers forget that sometimes. And I get on him, I get after them. Sometimes I said, let your children know how you feel. Let them know how you feel. They are old enough to know. And they want to know how you feel. And if you cannot be true about it, don’t say it. If you cannot be for real, don’t say anything. Just keep quiet. But I’m going to be for real. And I’ve always tried to be for real,
16:21
Mr. State, your voice has not aged? Well, you are justified in calling us your kids.
Nestor Aparicio 16:30
I almost want to make him look in his eye. So let me say this, I asked you this that night, I want to I want our friends that are here and people that were involved. I remember the time with my fair lady. And I’ll give you a hard time about Freddie and I’ll sing and do all that stuff in a minute. But you did a lot of shows. And I remember being in your class and seeing the the little booklets for byebye brother, the shows you’d already done with South Pacific West Side, whatever the stories were. And I bring Stephanie in on this because I thought you were gonna do Annie with her when you did My Fair Lady our year, right. And I remember being a part of it, and we were going down to Dundalk Middle School. But it was like, it was like hard work. I played on sports teams. You know what I mean? I had been a part of things I had been in the Cub Scouts, I had been a part of group activities. And as a kid, I mean, I’m 1112 years old or whatever, and your choral things were hardcore. And you were demanding on you know, singing a Christmas in spring, but the show and what you brought to it. I don’t wanna get too emotional thinking about it, but like, You made us feel like we were great. Like the night we went on stage that night we thought we were like on Broadway, and you had us beaten beaten being into doing it perfectly, you know, like it was gonna be perfect. Or and you were adamant about it, and you were prepared me for real life because it was freaking business. This was serious. It was important. And you had to do it right. It was really, really important. And I don’t know that everybody got you called it love. I would call it discipline you I mean, but there was a discipline that you brought to that but
Calvin Statham 18:13
it was a combination of both. Don’t leave out the love and don’t worry about the discipline. They went together. They go together and if you if you know that if you do me you saw that go
Nestor Aparicio 18:26
oh, yes no question about that. But I thought they paid you to do that like no no, you I asked you did you have to put a show on it was an artist like your job that you had to do it because the amount of work you put in with every Ingrid every every person to sing their songs do their parts. There was no three people helping you. You had a time in your office and you had to sit and learn your song and if I would have been Freddie like Lou Lou shoni I would have had to sit with you and learn it. And you know, like all of that right?
Calvin Statham 18:57
But But see, here’s what I’m saying to you. You get that in Okay, I got that. When I when I came out of high school was literally when I came out of high school. We had done shows like that my sister was famous for doing shows down and turn the station and she bought so many children out of the woodwork at Sol’s point
Nestor Aparicio 19:20
had you been in her shows your sister? Oh,
Calvin Statham 19:24
and but I like I said, I pattern my teaching life. She was my mentor. My own sister was my mentor. I didn’t know that. She taught me she taught my brother also my brother that was killed in the car accident but she taught us but when I started myself, I did not want to bring to the Children of Mary Had a Little Lamb show or three blind mice show. I said no I’m not doing this. I’m Want to do a real show? And I started with something called operettas. The first operetta I put on was called marrying Marian. And I had two brilliant two brilliant students, Celeste Tao Mesa and her sister Bonnie down may so you probably don’t even know them. But they lived over in, in Berkshire. And when I heard those voices, then a guy named Tony Calabrese, I heard the voices I said, on these children are going to do something worth doing. And I mean, they put on a show that first show, Marian, Marian. I tell you, I was so proud of those children. I didn’t know what to do. I couldn’t wait until the next show. I could not wait. And the next one was called the Gypsy troubadour. The next one was called The fortune teller. Then I said, I’m gonna stop doing opera writers. I’m gonna start doing musicals. And that went in my brain. I said, I’m gonna do it. The first musical I did was lil Abner. Okay. Oh, boy. It was fun. It was fun, fun, fun, fun, fun. And I mean, those kids put on a show that would not wait. And it was at that time when the principal from Dundalk junior high at that time would come he’d never missed my shows. He would come to everyone he wouldn’t go home. He would stay sometimes he would call me cow. Let’s go out and get something to eat. And I’m going to your show tonight. I said well, that’s great mystery fo you come on to my show. And he did after the abna I think I went to maybe South Pacific or or Oklahoma or I did shows like that. I never did baby shows. I Rajan Hammerstein. Yeah, I did. I like, like challenges for children and but my children took the challenges they took him they did, but I’m gonna tell you right now for their ages. Boyle boy, you couldn’t beat it. You couldn’t beat them. They were fantastic. These were children. Sometimes I wouldn’t be paralyzed sitting at the piano looking at him when they weren’t making me laugh. But I mean, I would look at him and I say these are children and they are doing this. You see, they are doing these things. The King and I would think that junior high school children or middle school children would do a show like the Kenyan I or my fair lady. You see the sound of music. I think I must have done the sound of music. I did it before I left Hala bird. I did it when I came back to Hala bird. I did it at Pikesville junior high school. I love the sound of music. The hills were
Nestor Aparicio 23:15
alive from pikes fuller Dundalk. They won the hills were alive from the heels
Calvin Statham 23:19
were alive in both places, both places. When I left, I didn’t even know I left holla bird because the children that Pikesville were just the same to me. It was the same exact thing. They were fantastic. They were the best children. Hollenberg was fantastic. They were the best children. I just felt like I went from one place to the other. But I shared my talent with with children. All that mattered to me was sharing the talent with children.
Nestor Aparicio 23:51
So I call him 10 weeks ago, and no he called me he called me
23:58
next it’d be 10 years ago. No
Nestor Aparicio 24:00
he calls me and I picked the phone up and I saw I looked down and I saw the number 477 said Hello Miss jatim He says to me, is this Mr. Zoltan Karpati this that’s who you were. That’s what was he knew what I was in his show. And all I remember about that is I didn’t really want it. I’m gonna kid you and I’m gonna sing and we’re gonna be stupid. I wasn’t good enough to be Freddie at that time. Although I love that part. And I love that song. But you made me this crazy Hungarian speech pathologist, but more than that, I didn’t know anything of like I did my part. I tried to learn my lines. I wasn’t very good at it. Like I’m still not good at remembering lines. And the night before the first rehearsals, like the rehearsal was like Wednesday or Thursday and then we did the show Friday and Saturday, whatever. And, uh, showed up and all I remember is your wife being she did make up. And I’m like, and I had a tuxedo I had to wear and I was you know, I was I was in Ovaltine. I was desperate. Making this Why’d that time you know, and which is why anger didn’t want any part of me but that’s it. So, your wife did my makeup. And she brought me this dead rat and She glued it onto my face. And every night for three straight nights, I had sheep. I know what your wife your wife was in my face. I smelled her because she was on makeup. I had I had two hours of makeup at Blue and I had to let it sit on my face and like all of this stuff, Stanley to Blonsky just walked in look at you from Chicago, Illinois. To Dundalk. Look at you so so your wife put this stuff on my face and all I remember. Calvin I still think I got the I still think I got the glue behind my ears. My skin peeled off. It was awful. So I am so angry at you for giving me that part. Because I’m mad at your wife for doing it stuff on my face. I was traumatized Mr. State.
Calvin Statham 26:05
That’s too bad. I was too bad.
26:11
That’s to my point about Dundalk being real tough. But
Nestor Aparicio 26:17
I was trying to flirt with Ingrid squires afterwards and I had all this glue behind my ears. Like a clue all over me. Calvin stadium is here. agricoles dots here. We have friends. Deputies here. I want to talk My Fair Lady. When we come back. I’ve got a yearbooks. Is there anything you want to say to him before I let you get out? Because you gotta you gotta get on the road. You’re telling me what you do with how to find you. Because like, you’re you’re a special person. And I want to make sure everybody knows what you do.
Ingrid Kohlstadt 26:43
Oh, well, I was thinking about what I was saying about Calvin state. I’m teaching me what I needed to know, before I needed to know it. I liked hanging out by the piano or hiding under the piano or by the piano or there. And he would make the piano like vibrate differently. The piano can like sing on its own as well as my piano didn’t do that played it differently is what you’re saying? Yeah. So when I was there, like course me, you know, kind of put my hand on the piano. And then I went to Parma medical training and stuff. I was at Gallaudet to learn like, it’s a school for the deaf. And they say you come into the dance. And I thought dance. How do you dance? And and then I remembered the piano. And that’s what they all did. They were like people standing on the walls and around the piano, putting their hands there to get the rhythm. And I said that’s it. I got it. You feel the rhythm. It’s something internal. It’s more than like your ears. It’s your your whole body you kind of have to put yourself into it. I’ve been fascinated the effects of like rhythm. And the other thing is you helped me impress people. When I was a first time I like married into a family to observe Passover and I started crooning stuff like go down Moses
28:21
you had a sole background
Nestor Aparicio 28:25
they knew you would spend some some weekends with the state and singers. Absolutely. Well, Ingrid Scotia and Gavin stadium are my guests. It’s all brought to you by the Maryland lottery. I got some scratch off tickets. Stan is gonna get one even though he’s from Illinois these days. It’s also brought to you by our friends at window nation. I want to take a break. We’re gonna get some more drinks. We’re at drunk city. We’re upstairs with the tasting room at the fountain come on by say hello. In grid sure play.
28:53
Go down Moses. Way down in Egypt man tallow prayer row when my people Oh Go Go.
Nestor Aparicio 29:13
Take a break. It’s good. wn st Towson Baltimore. Stay with us.
