TEMPLE —Drew Holston knows how to play the piano. After all, the 61-year-old’s mother made him start playing at age 7.
Drew Holston of Temple, the parking enforcement officer for Farmington Police Department, plays some impromptu jazz on a piano at The Homestead Kitchen, Bar & Bakery on Broadway in Farmington. Sun Journal Photo by Donna M. Perry
His skills came to the attention of Carmen Goodine of Fairfield recently after Holston, Farmington Police Department’s parking enforcement officer, gave her a ticket.
Goodine then wanted to know about long-term parking in Farmington. The two stepped inside Everyday Music on Broadway — where Goodine was then working with owner Ernie Scholl — to warm up, and Holston drew her a map. Next thing she knew, Holston began playing a piano in the store, which was like the one he played as a child. Goodine shot a video on her cellphone.
Farmington police posted Goodine’s video on its Facebook page on Dec. 3. At last count it had 10,394 views.
Holston, a Westbrook High School graduate who lives off the grid in Temple, also works for the University of Maine at Farmington Campus Police Department. He said he likes working for both law enforcement agencies. “We are all a team,” he said.
How did you get interested in playing the piano? HA! There were four of us boys and we all had to start piano lessons at age 7. There was NO option (according to mother). Ironically the piano teacher was also my mother’s piano teacher, and later the teacher dated my grandmother when they were both in their 70s and 80s. He also taught ballroom dancing. My great-grandmother and grandmother (who both played piano) had a vaudeville act and performed in many of the theaters around the Portland area back in the late 1910s-1920s. So I guess it is a legacy.
Where did you learn to play it? Westbrook Maine for eight years.
What types of music are you most interested in performing? Old blues (Delta, Chicago, Piedmont), jazz (old-timey New Orleans), gypsy jazz, some classical and easy listening and folk music. I work on these from time to time (little pun).
Do you have other musical instruments you are interested in? Though I don’t play them, I found I had a knack for the drums. Would like to learn to play the ukulele and the kantele (with 11 or more strings) and maybe the harp.
Do you write your own music, compositions? Oh my yes! Wrote three songs for graduation and was instrumentalist for a duet, was the sole instrumentalist for three years at the Pease Air Force Base Officers Club (I was enlisted Air Force). Written (and forgotten) and improvised so many songs.
Have you performed for an audience before? Have played in art galleries, larger hotel lobbies, at weddings (my son’s being one of them), at group homes and assisted living spaces/nursing homes, even played at Maine Medical Center a few times.
To see the video, go to www.facebook.com/cgoodine/posts/10216165644148280?. Courtesy of Carmin Goodine.
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