My grandmother was a tasteful & genteel woman whose Caribbean upbringing taught her culture and class. She thought it the way in which to educate her son. It never struck her that it could lead to an untimely demise. They lived on Burnet Ave, a bastion of old world Italian dealers in guns, knives, thuggery and all manner of wholesale thievery and power struggles. She did not want my Dad mixed up in anything that smacked of tawdry and malevolent behaviors. Ergo, she sought to have him mature in the roots of the classics. My father wondered his entire life why a nappy-headed boy toting a violin up those wicked streets remained vertical and scarless. We may now know the answer … mobsters were well-known for carrying their machine guns in violin cases. In truth, my grandmother may have saved that young fellow from being a Black guy living in a neighbourhood that didn’t want him there to a lad who may or may not be simply taking lessons from the local violin teacher!!!