— Professor Harold Hill in The Music Man

There’s a young man in New Hampshire named Brian Short who I don’t know very well. His dad, Kevin Short, is one of my oldest friends; we met during junior high school back in 1970. But, sadly, I don’t know Brian or his brother Raymond very well.

Yet there’s something important I know about Brian Short. I know that he’s got a fine start in life. That’s true not only because he has fine parents, but also because Brian is fortunate enough to have been in the high school band directed by a teacher who today was named winner of only the second-ever Grammy Music Educator Award.

Brian’s band director is Jared Cassedy of Windham High School in the town of Windham, about 35 miles northwest of Boston and the same distance southeast of New Hampshire’s state capital at Concord.CBS News correspondent Anthony Mason profiled the energetic young teacher today on CBS This Morning.

CBS, which will broadcast the 57th Annual Grammy Awards this Sunday, Feb. 8, tagged Mr. Cassedy as “The Music Man.”

And of course he is. Mason’s profile reveals Cassedy to have the energy and determination of Professor Harold Hill, the shyster seller of uniforms and instruments who magically gives River City, Iowa, the boys band it never knew it wanted, a century ago in The Music Man. Cassedy has the moves of Robert Preston, the great actor-singer-dancer who originated the role of Harold Hill in Meredith Willson’s musical on Broadway and in the movies 55 years ago.

Cassedy lifts his kids to heights they never expected, just as Harold Hill did with his “think system” of instruction — a visualization of playing music that was the only tool the completely untrained and increasingly desperate Hill had to motivate his students and win the love and respect of Marian Paroo, the skeptical town librarian.

Just getting the boys of River City to play a few notes was a feat for Harold Hill. Mr. Cassedy took his band all over New England — I know, because my friend Kevin was a dedicated band dad in the parent support network — and then won contests in Chicago and New York leading to the stage of Carnegie Hall for a recital performance.

You have to put yourself out there to teach kids, keep moving, keep planning, keep organizing, keep inspiring, and keep on top of high schoolers playing and rehearsing what — when you think of it — is an incredible variety of complicated moving parts in dozens of music-making machines.

Harold Hill said, "A man can't turn tail and run just because a little personal risk is involved. What did Shakespeare say? 'Cowards die a thousand deaths, the brave man... only 500?’”

What I’m learning these days is that the great band educators teach that lesson all the time. They teach it first to themselves, and then they teach it to their students.

This past weekend, Kevin’s and my hometown of Westport, Connecticut, observed the memorial service for Jack Adams, the band director who taught us at Long Lots Junior High School and Staples High School. Mr. Adams died at age 88 in January.

Jack Adams was eulogized as being all about teaching kids to take Harold Hill’s brand of Shakespearean risks — though Jack would have labeled Hill’s mangling of the Bard as “cornball.” But at the Unitarian Church service, six former students celebrated his life by forming a one-time only Adams Memorial Brass Ensemble in his honor; you can hear their music on my SoundCloud playlist.

In the playlist above, you can also hear my mother, Denise Taft Davidoff, relate the pride of a town in the accomplishments of its students, and her observations about Jack Adams’ pride in his work. It’s a pride that motivates a lot of musicians, and it makes young musicians into better young people.

Which is why I’m sure about Brian Short.He’s been educated through music, and that’s great. Not that I imagine it was ever too much of a problem, but I’m sure the days are long past of young Brian causing any River City “trouble” to his mother, Mary, by rebuckling his knickerbockers below the knee, keeping a dime-store novel in the corncrib, memorizing jokes from Captain Billy’s Whiz-Bang or using the harsh language of “swell” or “so’s your old man.”

What’s most remarkable is that the so many great music educators really do know violinist Mischa Elman’s great line that “Practice” is the way to get to Carneige Hall.

Brian’s been there with his award-winning music teacher.

My daughter, Sarah Ellen Davidoff, got to Carnegie Hall, too, with her music teacher from Walnut Hills High School in Cincinnati, Ohio. The school played in a music festival a few years ago.

And my nephew, Josh Davidoff of Evanston, Illinois, got to Carnegie Hall most recently of all, in summer 2014 with the National Youth Orchestra of the USA.

I’m sorry Jack Adams is gone. He was part of a brilliant music faculty in my hometown. Yet there are brilliant music educators teaching the formative lessons of life to students everywhere. When one dies, another follows a week later with a Grammy.

There will always be a band, kid. But the “rows and rows of the finest virtuosos” following the 76 trombones and the 110 coronets are the teachers, winners with or without a Grammy.

And now, because if you’re here, I know you want it. So here’s this:

I spent all day wishing on a star. I wished in a phone call this morning. I wished in polite calls to my state legislators. I wished online tonight.

I wished only to apply for health insurance through the Massachusetts Health Connector. Its whiz-bang new customer portal carries the URL “BetterHealthConnector.com”

Oh, yeah? Give me that good ol’ fashion “MAHealthConnector.org.” At least that site knew who I was. Today, I am in insurance purgatory because the gee-whiz new version of the Health Connector has a tiny problem. It hasn’t the foggiest notion that I exist. No me, no health insurance.

I must depend on a wish and a star
As long as my heart doesn’t know who you are.

Yes, I made a huge error. I let the deadline to reapply for health insurance I already have creep up on me. This morning, while driving to a client’s office in Connecticut, I passed through rain, fog, and five of the eight counties in the Nutmeg State before (a) getting off from some lovely and non-annoying hold music and (b) speaking with a polite customer service representative who informed me that while the Massachusetts Health Connector’s IT system has been “upgraded,” its upgrade includes a feature not found on ordinary computers. It has amnesia! It doesn’t know who I am any longer.

!(My travels with Health Connector)[http://note.io/1A3cJVa “Title"]

Honestly. I’ve worked with these folks for years on health insurance. I’ve visited their offices in person to make payments. My doctors seem to have no trouble getting paid by them, thank God. But today, my name has that je ne se quoi quality to it, as the French say. They don’t know who the heck I am.

So I couldn’t apply on the phone.

That’s okay, though. I could apply on the web. As soon as I got home.

I called my state rep and state senator to tell them about my problem. The state senator’s office even

On a more positive note, the policy sensibility from then pen of Juliette Kayyem has returned to the editorial pages of The Globe.
In today’s column, Juliette reviews what I called, in fractured French, the “policy faux pas du jour,” namely militarization of U.S. local police agencies with equipment sold or disposed by the American military.
I wrote some comments at the end of Juliette’s column, and I’m repeating them here.
First: "Hi, Juliette. Glad to have your byline back in The Globe.
"Police militarization has become the policy faux pas du jour. You acknowledge the actions of medics in the Boston Marathon Bombing. But military-grade equipment was evident throughout the end of that ordeal, especially in Watertown. I think much of the equipment arrived on the scene from the Watertown Police Department the the Middlesex Sheriff's Department.
"Looking back on that awful, horrible, scary 36 hours in Watertown and surrounding communities, would we say that it was example of wise deployment of military-grade equipment and wise use of it? At the time, I thought so. I was surprised to see all that equipment, but I felt safer. Now, after Ferguson, would we say that there were other options?
"What would Watertown and Middlesex have deployed in the absence of the military stuff? Would it have been just as effective? Would we have still caught our suspect? Would all of us -- police, neighbors, community-at-large, and even the suspect -- been as safe?”
And then I added: "Some other thoughts:
"1. If this equipment is in good shape, then why is the military disposing of it?
"2. If we don't sell or grant it to state or local governments, then would foreign countries become the market for selling it?
"3. If we sell it abroad at bargain prices, then do we risk being complicit in militarization of local police in other countries?
"4. Upshot: Should this equipment be destroyed when the military is done with it?"