They laughed when Zach sat down at the piano...

Sunday, October 26, 2003 -- Last night's cold front made for a wet and miserable Sunday. That didn't stop Zach from begging me to take him hunting at uncle Bubba's. "I'm not going dove hunting in the rain" I told him. Instead, we did a little shopping in Beeville, had lunch at Taqueria, and stopped by the Skidmore Museum to pick up a copy of the "Camp Ezell" section of the "History of Bee County." We were unsuccessful in this last endeavor and I was glad to have Zach with me as it is always a little spooky in the Museum after dark. I received an email from Roger Van Herck of Belgium today. He must have come across my online genealogical information and noticed a link between our two families. According to Mr. Van Herck, the great grandmother of August Robrecht (my great uncle who married Grandpa Ferdinand's sister Rose) is a descendant of Susanna Van Beethoven. And if you are wondering, yes, she was a member of the THE Van Beethoven family of which Ludwig was a member. Of course, there is no direct bloodline but I thought it was coincidental that Zach chose this weekend to try to learn to play the piano. And darned if he doesn't seem to have a knack for it. Over the course of two days I was able to teach him "When the saints go marching in." What took me about two months of lessons back in the mid 90's, Zach picked up over the weekend. And I'm not talking about finger pecking. He learned to play real two-handed, chords-and-all piano with fingers in the right positions and everything. When Cathi and Josh returned from Corpus this evening they were treated to surprise performance. Cathi raised her eyebrows and gave me a "where did that come from" look. I always said that Zach had at least half of the "idiot savant" thing going for him.