Labor Day love song: WVU music prof finally stops teaching -- at age 100

Sep. 3—Ruffy's a Duke Ellington fan.

The rambunctious pup — a poodle, without the fancy haircut — stopped what he was doing the other day and sidled over to his master, Leo Horacek, as the 103-year-old professor emeritus of music made his way to the piano in his living room.

When the professor began playing, Ruffy—himself about 9—perked up, then settled in for a listen.

"Caravan, " was the tune: the Latin-tinged, big band, toe-tapper made famous by Ellington in 1936, when Horacek was a young man back home in Kansas before the start of World War II.

Horacek took his time with the tune he plays every day, just for fun.

His left hand hit the driving bass line, while his right danced up and down, just like the ripples on the Pacific Ocean, for the melody.

It's hard not think about time in that living room, in Hornacek's comfortable house, in the Morgantown area.

There's the century-plus-three age of the person giving the impromptu concert, for one thing.

There was that, plus a serious collection of ornate clocks (most of which display different hours and minutes on their faces) lining the shelves and walls up to area in the room with the piano, which is a surrogate office and studio, of sorts.

Time, unstuck and keeping its own rhythms.

"Well, it kind of goes like that, " Horacek said, at song's end.

"I'm self-taught on piano. I probably make a lot of mistakes — I know I make a lot of mistakes — but I enjoy it."

Life is what he also enjoys, despite enduring the loss of outliving one of his sons, two wives and all of his immediate family members back home.

"I should probably be dead today, but for some reason, I'm not, " he said.

"I probably should have died then, but here I am, 103."

No melancholy here, however. He gave a little chuckle, as he voiced the above.

Tales of war and peace When he said, "I probably should have died then, " he was referring to World War II, where, in his early 20s, he faced death with regularity as a U.S. Navy fighter pilot.

He flew several combat missions in Europe and Japan and was shot down twice — over the Pacific after one skirmish — and in full view of the guns that found their mark.

Amazingly, he downplays having to ditch his heavily damaged Hellcat fighter plane in enemy waters.

Horacek nursed the craft to an area where he knew an American sub was lurking just under the surface, for just such a rescue.

"We were trained really well, " said the pilot-professor, who wore the bars of lieutenant when he came home from the fighting.

Should you want to thank him for his service, or make note of his membership in the Greatest Generation, he'll thank you in return — while continuing to politely downplay his contributions.

"I'm not sure anyone wants to hear my 'war stories, ' " he said.

"And our generation was just doing what we were called to do. It was our job."

Which is what this story is really about, in the hours and minutes before Labor Day: Jobs, and callings, even.

Like a lot of returning vets armed with the G.I. Bill, Horacek was a young man in a hurry when he landed in music classrooms at the University of Kansas after the war.

A bachelor's degree was the opening act for a master's, until his doctorate sang the aria.

Horacek worked fast, earning his doctorate in trumpet studies there in 1955, after teaching in elementary schools and small colleges in his home state along the academic way.

He didn't care if you were a kindergartener scratching out "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star, " on violin — or a fledgling community college orchestra battening it down for Beethoven's 5th Symphony.

Either way, was going to help you — gently — achieve the full technical and emotional measures of the performance.

"I'm not sure if I was all that talented, " he said, "but I really enjoyed the teaching aspects of music, " said Horacek, who joined WVU's fine arts faculty in 1960.

Ruffy calls for a break Horacek retired from the school in Morgantown in 1981, but he never stopped working.

He gave private lessons in trumpet, before turning to WVU's Osher Lifelong Learning Institute, where he taught music seminar-type courses for senior citizens and others on everything from Bach to bebop.

The organization gave him a standing ovation three years ago after he taught his final OLLI course at the age of 100.

Not that music professors ever really retire. Every day, he studies trumpet scores and plays his piano. His brain needs the toil, he said.

"Well, I'm still here, so I must still have a purpose, " he said. "Huh, Ruffy. Is that it ?"

The pooch by then had moved on from the Caravan. He retrieved a squeaky toy and dropped it at his master's feet, fixing the professor with a steady look.

You know, you don't have to work all the time, his wagging tail was saying.

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