The road less travelled

"My choice early in life was either to be a piano player in a whorehouse or politician. And to tell the truth, there's hardly any difference."

Harry S. Truman, 33rd President, 1945-1953

As quoted in Esquire, Vol. 76 (1971), also in Truman's Crises : A Political Biography of Harry S. Truman (1980) by Harold Foote Gosnell, p. 9 As a young boy, Truman had three main interests: music, reading, and history, all encouraged by his mother, to whom he was very close. As president, he solicited political as well as personal advice from her.[8] He got up at five every morning to practice the piano, which he studied twice a week until he was fifteen.[9] Truman was a page at the 1900 Democratic National Convention at Convention Hall in Kansas City. (http://enc.tfode.com/Harry_S._Truman) He was considered quite good and recordings of his playing can be found on current sites, such as youtube.com.