My Life Story - John Lozier

the 50’s - I was born second of four children, in 1943, in Portland, Oregon. Train trips to Montana to visit grandmother; camping with family; grade school, then 1960 graduate of David Douglas HS

the 60’s - Stanford University, in cultural anthropology; University of Minnesota grad school; field work in Mexico, married Kitty in 1969.

the 70’s - with Ph. D., moved in 1969 to West Virginia University; professor of anthropology; raising 3 children; took up fiddle with Wild Turkey String Band; fieldwork in West Virginia; father died in 1978.

the 80’s - quit a secure job; rejection of academic life; failure in small business (alternative energy); staff job at WVU Physical Plant (inspection of contracted projects); part-time college teaching in Pennsylvania (cultural anthropology)

the 90’s - turning point in life: trip to Venezuela in 1991, where I discovered the harp as folk instrument. I was adjunct at WVU College of Agriculture. I established Harping for Harmony Foundation as a non-profit “to promote harmony and community, locally and globally, through harp music”

2000-2010 - golden age of “harping for harmony”; trips to Venezuela; hosting of visiting harpists from here and there; retirement in 2005; part-time substitute teaching in Morgantown, WV public schools

2010-20 - adjustment to retirement, to reality, to mortality…

Memoirs….

50’s… When I started school at Gilbert Grade School in Portland, Oregon, in 1949, I was moved immediately to second grade. That put me a year behind my classmates. A year later, upon entering third grade, I exuberantly announced to classmate Allen Neighorn that I had already read the reading textbook. This provoked a reprimand from my new teacher, Mrs. Greenwald, who saw in me the signs of excessive self-esteem or just plain narcissism.

After seven years, I entered David Douglas High School at 13 years of age, still small, short on physical and social development. I was put on an academic track toward college. Physical education was required, but due to a knee disorder (Osgood Schlatter's Disease) I was exempted. My mother wanted me to take typing. I insisted on taking wood shop, where I started a couple of weeks behind the class but quickly caught up and ended with time to spare for an optional extra project. My little step stool (later left to son Jacob and family) was among the best, maybe the very best. At least I remember it with pride, and I remember the finished products of some classmates were pretty lame.

These young experiences have left marks on my entire life. Always a little backward, but also stubborn, independent, inquisitive, creative, curious. However, my attention wandered. I did not invest deeply in any particular pursuit. During my 76 years of life, my choices gave me experience that was wide but perhaps also somewhat shallow.

A mile wide and an inch deep.

I retired from a good-paying job at age 62. That was I guess my fourth career. I was Adjunct Associate Professor of Agricultural Education, at the West Virginia College of Agriculture. Actually, I did not teach but worked as a field assistant in the study of grass-raised beef production. It was that work that took me to Venezuela in 1991, visiting farms in the tropical plains. There I discovered what came to be the ultimate passion of my life: the harp music and song traditions of Venezuela and Colombia.

In grade school I took no interest in sports, and developed no skills. Playing marbles was popular in the schoolyard. We were not supposed to "play for keeps." When playing for keeps, I would invariably lose.

I liked music. I took piano lessons, but not for long. I did not read the music, but quickly learned to pick out the notes with an assist from a teacher who would point to a key when I hesitated. My mother "fired" that teacher when she discovered I could not read music.

I played baritone horn in the band, but I never got very good at reading the score. Baritone had interesting parts (countermelody). The trombone is similar in range but much less showy. In high school, I attempted to make a switch, perhaps to gain popularity. The trombone would appear at the front of the marching band. However, I soon found it to be musically more boring. (I tried briefly to play Dixieland jazz on trombone, but it just wasn't right.)

I loved Gilbert and Sullivan operettas and other orchestral events to which my parents took me as a child. (Much later, in the 1970's, I actually sang the role of the Major General in an amateur production of "Pirates of Penzance".)

Later in high school I took up guitar, first with folk music and early rock and roll, in the styles of (for example) The Kingston Trio and/or Chuck Berry. Later I tried to switch to classical guitar, in the tradition of Andres Segovia. That lasted a couple of years, but didn't really take.

Musically, I did not develop much in undergraduate college. I flunked an audition to play trombone at Stanford. As a graduate student in Minneapolis I ushered for the New York Metropolitan Opera during their annual week-long series. To qualify to volunteer as usher, I bought a tuxedo, second-hand, from a rental outfit. I was a music consumer, not a musician.

I took up the fiddle after a move to West Virginia in 1969. Wife Kitty and I came directly from Mexico where I spent a year in fieldwork to earn my Ph. D. in Cultural Anthropology. I taught at West Virginia University for ten years, my "first" career, then quit just as I got tenure. Second career was selling woodstoves in the energy crisis of the early 80's. When that petered out in 1985, my third career took me to the WVU Physical Plant, where I was involved with inspection of contractors working on campus. From there I went in 1990 to the WVU College of Agriculture, and also resumed some part-time teaching of cultural anthropology at California State University of Pennsylvania. I've a lot more memoirs to write, but not just now.

A lot of who I am now started in 1991 when I discovered the folk harp in Venezuela. There's a lot more to write, but later.

This, my first memoir, is an overview. Also, an effort to frame a strategy for cleaning out my boxes and file drawers stuffed with memorabilia.

(20190729 revised 20201210)

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Memoirs 2

2011-12 …

In 2010, I attended a 50th anniversary class reunion. Among those I reconnected with was Ken Burns, always a great raconteur, or maybe a "wise-acre." However I have failed to keep in touch, and now in December, 2020 I'm reviewing a letter I drafted but maybe never sent. I think I meant to share with him some "self-esteem" issues.

My issue was and is uncertainty as to whether I am just as good, or better, or not as good, as others. Did I regret some decisions and choices in my life, back in 2011, or now, a decade later? No, not exactly, they are who I am.

I was attempting to write a journal, by hand, and resolved to do so without revising. I am a good writer but not a particularly good storyteller or raconteur. I like to construct "sound bites," short messages like letters to the editor, announcements, flyers, pamphlets, for political or social groups or issues. I tend to be cryptic, which is not the way of a storyteller. "Just the facts, nothing but the facts."

I wanted then, and still want, to be a better storyteller, and also a better friend. This revision is a step in that journaling journey.

In August, 2011, Kitty's brother George and sister Susie visited, and after they left we visited Kitty's cousin Ann and her husband Steve, in North Carolina. They have a nice house on a lake, we enjoyed waterfront activities and also too much to eat. I gained 10 pounds. With us was my grandson Isaiah, 13. Steve was a very good father-figure. He took Isaiah on all sorts of water activities including jet-ski, kayak, snorkeling and also paddling standing up on a surfboard!!

I learned that Steve has been hosting "big brothers" groups that come to enjoy the waterfront every year. I am not quite as good about finding common interests with Isaiah or anyone else for that matter. For example I flat out do not follow sports. However, I enjoyed watching the biking Tour de France. I admire and identify with the challenges of individual athletics.

As I write, I do not have the narrative from Ken Burns that prompted this journal and reply. Ken had detailed his own life, in preparation for the reunion. He stuck out as a popular music enthusiast, a sort of deejay type.

My letter, reviewed here, mentions my horoscope for that day, which said "take a calculated risk that you've been considering." I still read the horoscope, as of December, 2020, which tells me today that I am entering a 6-month period of productive potential. Plus ca change, plus c'est la meme chose.

Kitty's reading of Ken's letter reaffirmed my impression of his wordsmithing and storytelling, with special emphasis on his devotion to popular music. I reflected then, and again now, on my own longstanding devotion to music, but of a different genre: Venezuelan harp music. By 2011 I had already made several trips to Venezuela.

Already in 2011 I was identifying an "existential" concern, even consulting a counselor. I was asking, "who am I?" and "what is the meaning of life?" I considered moving or living anywhere else on earth. Kitty was not so inclined, but we negotiated a sort of settlement. I traveled alone. Not knowing how much time I have left, I was wondering if I was getting all I want out of life. Still wondering a decade later. However,, Kitty and I kept permanent residence in West Virginia until our move to Nebraska this year.

Though Kitty and I are very close, we differ in some very obvious ways. She plays golf, bridge and scrabble. She is not interested in moving, or living anywhere else on earth. I offered to move back to Portland, or to Seattle (where her sister lived), or to Wisconsin (where she was born and raised). No, she wanted to stay in West Virginia. I offered to live in Washington, PA, a town halfway between Morgantown (where two of our children were settled) and Pittsburgh (where the other two of my children were settled). No. I suggested we go to Mexico City where we could spend a year or so at a quaker guest-house. No. We were married in Mexico, in 1968, and stayed briefly in the quaker guest-house.

So, bottom line, it dawned on us that I might just go off for months or more, to Mexico, to Venezuela, or maybe to El Salvador, or elsewhere.

Kitty reads a lot more than I do. I started reading in Spanish. A novel that might not interest me in English I might interesting in Spanish. I even read Spanish translations of books written originally in English. I got a kick out of seeing how various expressions or cliches are rendered in another language. This is the sort of thing that is supposed to help keep our aging brains from deteriorating further. Other folks play bridge or do sudoku, I read Spanish.

I first went to Venezuela in 1991, and did not go back till 2005. After that I went almost every year for a time, to study with traditional harpists. In 2009 I hooked up with a terrific teacher, Jose Gregorio Lopez. "Goyo" not only plays the traditional harp and performs professionally, but ALSO prides himself in being a TEACHER.

(In subsequent years I returned to Venezuela and then to Bogota, Colombia where I studied with Hildo Ariel Aguirre Daza, as recently as 2019. Like Goyo, Hildo insisted on proper fingering and rhythm, and rigorous discipline.)

Then and now, I am CERTAIN that I will NEVER be as skilled as Goyo, Hildo, or many others of the great many competent harpists in Venezuela and Colombia. I do not aspire to play at their level, but just to be good enough to show some respect for the tradition.

I neglected to maintain many contacts and to nourish the relationships that could have been mine, across more than half a century. With the perspective of age, I can count scores of people that have been important to me and then lost.

Two rules suggested by a counselor, for writing a journal or diary, are 1) limit an entry to 10 minutes or 3 pages in length; and 2) use handwriting and do not revise.

Brief Musical Biography of a “harper for harmony”

John Lozier plays traditional folk harp music from many lands. From childhood, he learned to play various musical instruments - brass, strings and keyboard - all entirely by ear. In his 20's he took up the old-time fiddle, while living in West Virginia. In midlife, he discovered the traditional folk harp in Venezuela, where he traveled with a group of other agricultural scientists from West Virginia University.

He calls himself a "busker," mostly solo but sometimes with small groups. He has performed across the world on streets, at coffee-houses, in school programs, and at private events. He is particularly fond of Latin American harp music. In 1994 he established the Harping for Harmony Foundation "to promote harmony and community, locally and globally, through harp music." More information: harpingforharmony.org.

John came to Lincoln, Nebraska in early 2020, after living for fifty years in West Virginia.

Not long after returning from Venezuela, I joined an online harp interest group (https://harplist.groups.io/g/main/. I asked for any information about Latin style harpists, and Sue Richards directed me to John Kovac, a harpist and harpmaker in Front Royal, VA. John had discovered the harp while in Peace Corps in Colombia, but the style that captivated him was Paraguayan.

From John I learned how to construct simple harps, in his own unique fashion, based on Paraguayan features. I built several small harp kits and carried them to El Salvador in 1994.

John is a very devoted performer. He has made a practice of playing several times a week at local restaurants and other venues in the vicinity of Front Royal, VA. Since the mid-90’s, John and I have co-sponsored countless performance events with Latin American harpists. He traveled with me to Venezuela in 2006.

Among John’s well-established routines are annual trips to Guatemala, and regular attendance at Clifftop, the Appalachian String Band Music Festival, in late summer, in Clifftop, WV.

John shares my devotion to the Baquiano mission unlike any other “gringo” harpist that I know.

March 11, 2007

Jesus Garcia, at the age of 16 a year ago, received a harp as a gift from Harping for Harmony Foundation. Today, a year later, he performed for a small group at Ecological Park La Manguera.

Latin American Harp Music Program WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 28, 2015

For friends in Morgantown and vicinity, I present my Latin American Harp Music program at Osher Lifelong Learning Instutute (OLLI) this week, on Wednesday, January 28, 2015, at 3:00-4:50 PM and again at 6:00-7:50. Located on Greenbag Road, the old Mountaineer Mall (map).
 
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Here is the course announcement as announced by OLLI:
 
Harp Music in Latin America
Instructor: John Lozier
Email: jl@harpingforharmony.org
Wednesday, 3:00 PM - 4:50 PM and 6:00 PM -7:50 PM
Classroom A
Course Description: This course will showcase the rich
traditions of harp music in Latin America, focusing on
Mexico, Venezuela, Colombia, and Paraguay. The
Instructor will provide live harp demonstrations, and
speak of his travels in Venezuela since 2005, and in
Colombia in 2014. This repeats the Fall Term course but
will include new selections as well as some encore video
and audio items.
 
Instructor’s Background: After a lifetime of different roles
and careers (among them anthropologist, small
businessman, bureaucrat, agricultural educator, father,
and grandfather), John Lozier is primarily a “harper for
harmony” and a K-12 substitute public school teacher in
West Virginia.