Shaun Yu leaving All Classical 89.9

OK, so maybe not everyone in Portland listens to classical music during their morning commute. No traffic reports, jokes, Beatles or U2. Count this post as a “Point of Personal Privilege” under Robert’s Rules of Order, if you aren’t one of the select few. For the past six years, my car radio has had one button tuned to All Classical 89.9, and the kids in my school carpool and I have listened every morning. It’s a lot more soothing than informational talk radio or those chatty morning shows, especially for not-morning-people types like evening shift workers and teenagers. Once in a while, a tune comes on that we recognize; even more rarely, one of us can remember the composer, greatly impressing everyone else. When a student has that “Oh, I know this and I can’t remember!” feeling, there’s less pressure from the driver than when some errant child fails to identify a classic rock band during a drive later in the day (hey, I take my role as parent-educator very seriously – once they get to be seniors, they darn well better be able not only to identify the band but name one of its members). When the BBC News comes on at 8 a.m., you know if you aren’t close to school, you better start writing the late-notes while stuck in traffic. All Classical 89.9 is a gentle, predictable way to start your day.

And presiding over all this, for nine years, has been the melodic, warm, informative voice of Shaun Yu. The guy is a classical music geek – and I mean that as a high compliment. His enthusiasm for the music and broad knowledge of its background is evident, and contagious. His selections are almost always perfect for waking up without feeling smacked over the head. They’re good for listening to when nobody feels like talking, and they’re good for background music when someone has the energy to start a conversation at 7:45 a.m.. And now, at the end of this week, Shaun is leaving. He’s taking a Program Director job in Ohio. My daughter and I feel we are losing a friend.

Listening to classical music during the morning carpool run started for us when Maxwell was in 8th grade. He and five other students at Jackson Middle School had soaked up all the math classes available there by the end of 7th grade, so for a year they took higher level classes at Wilson High School – during the “zero period”, starting at 7:15 a.m. Ugh! Other families with parents working day shift jobs drove the kids from home to Wilson on their way to work; as the only mom home during the day, my role was to make appropriate use of Steve’s humongous SUV (it’s a Ford Expedition – I call it the Explosion) to pick up the six students from Wilson and take them the four miles to Jackson in time to start their regular school day. Over the course of the year, the drive regularly became 15 minutes of group therapy. Six exceptionally motivated and intelligent (or, stressed-out and over-analytical) 8th graders, talking about their feelings and frustrations, with me moderating and facilitating, feeling more like a psychiatric nurse than a taxi-driver. Don’t ever dismiss a “soccer mom” (or “math mom”, in this case) as “just” someone who drives kids around. We’re not driving kids around, we’re raising the leaders of tomorrow.

I’ve driven six years of school morning car pools with Shaun Yu and All Classical 89.9 gently soothing in the background. We’ll keep listening to 89.9 for the next 18 months until Ali graduates, but it won’t be the same. Thank you for the help you didn’t know you were giving me, Shaun, in raising young Portlanders. Au revoir, hail and well met.