My father practicing in Kansas City. Notice the baby carriage in the background. If anyone is in it, it would be me!

Notice also that my father was wearing a tie and a vest. It was probably summer, or he also would have been wearing a suit coat. Dad was the picture of dignity his whole life. His hair had already turned silver by the time I was born, which helped his image as a distinguished classical musician. (He was 36 at the time. My parents started their family relatively late.) He would get up and put on a tie and a coat when he had nothing to do but sit around the house. The neighbors used to kid him for mowing the lawn dressed like that.

Dad's viola, which he played his entire career, was made by Paolo Costello, a maker who flourished in the late eighteenth century. It is thought that Paganini may have played this instrument at one time, but this cannot be verified.