"Charles Ives and I were teen-agers of about the same
age. One day I went up on the hill to the Ives house to
visit Charlie, and I found him playing a piano. I was
astonished to find that he played it with his feet as
well as with his hands. All expert piano players use their
feet to affect the piano, but I just learned it that day!

"Another personal memory of Charlie Ives relates to
playing tennis. On West Street in Danbury there was a
Rider family house (no relation to our family) with
tennis courts back of it, and we teen-agers all played
there. There'd been some effort to fix up the surface,
to kill weeds by salt. One day I was down there, and
Charlie was there. I heard him introduced to a young
lady, and the result is very typical of Ives as a young
man. When he was introduced to this young lady, he
hemmed and hawed, and he said, 'Look at the salt on
the tennis court,' and then he turned abruptly and ran
away. He was a very timid young man."

--Ely Ryder (1876-1972)
interviewed at his summer home in Brewster, NY (7/29/69)

in Vivian Perlis, Charles Ives Remembered: An Oral History
[New York: Norton, 1976]