Fisk University

Little decisions made in life, can have rather large effects. In the fall of 1968, the It's Happening Show died, and I was in Waterloo, basically planning my future. I was eager to go to university to study music. However, Canada didn't have semester systems at the time, and I wanted to go 'now', so I went to the Waterloo Public Library to look at books about American universities. I had a friend at USC (Santa Barbara) so I applied there. (He parlayed that degree into a Los Vegas band leader job) I came across a university called Fisk in Nashville Tennessee, and I thought, 'wouldn't it be nice to study music at a university level in Nashville'.  I wrote to them and received an application.  They wanted a picture included - fair enough.  Weeks later I received my replies.  USC - "sorry too late, please apply again".  Strangely, I never heard from Fisk.  I never thought too much of it until years later, I had a friend on a motorcycle trip in the south, and he told me that Fisk was a 'black' university - one of 4 set up immediately after the civil war.  But, of course, it didn't say that in the library book!  I have often wondered - if I had studied classical music at a black university in Nashville, where would I be today? The bio of Fisk...