It’s Always Mozart

By Richard Weinstein, President & COO
Ocean Reef Community Foundation

It pays to keep the odds in your favor.

Tomorrow starts our countdown to All Charities. That means you will be receiving a reminder every day until we excitedly arrive at our big annual event. I don’t know about you but I am excited! So much so that I can hardly sit still. Even under “normal” conditions I am not good at sitting still. Everyone thinks I work out to be healthy and stay in shape. Truth is if I didn’t totally exhaust myself in the gym, swimming or playing tennis, I couldn’t sit at my desk long enough to finish writing this sentence. Because of that, for me, plane trips are tough, sitting in a meeting is just bearable and a car trip is near torture. My wife, on the other hand, can pick up a 600-page book about the European Monarchs of the16^th Century and read it in one sitting.

Now put my wife and me in the same car and we have an interesting experiment for interactive human relations. To at least keep my mind occupied I come up with games to pass the time. One of our favorites is seeing who can be first to correctly guess the name of the song, band, group or composer as we use the scan button to switch from station to station. We are both good at this so there is only a second or two of the music before one of us knows the song…except for the classical stations.

When we first began playing we would often both be stumped. Then I figured something out. As time went by I started getting the classical stations right until I almost never missed. She was lost as to how my knowledge of classical music became so vast and at such a quick pace. What she failed to notice, to which I only recently confessed was my secret. I always guessed Mozart. He was the “top 40” artist of his time, was very prolific in his writing and most classical stations are the same as the current “oldies” stations except for the fact they are “very very oldies.” So for the most part classical stations and streaming services are always playing Mozart, with a little Beethoven, Chopin and Bach thrown in mid-day.

There probably was a time when that same strategy would have worked with the Beatles for Rock and Roll but for the most part guessing that things will be the same as they were in the past will only work so long. It’s the same for our All Charities auction. Yes, this year’s theme is focused on All Charities Traditions but there is so much that is new and different. The live auction is back and that is always exciting. Combined with the silent auction and a full weekend schedule of activities that continue to make the All Charities Weekend always fun and always full of great auction items. So, when you see each of the daily emails counting down to the big event, don’t just “guess” what is going to be inside, open it and see! Then be sure to join us and bid generously because your generosity always makes an enormous difference to our local not for profits and those who are most in need in our surrounding communities… and that is music to everyone’s ears.