Craig Kessler

Little Dexter, drumroll please

Craig Kessler knows a few things about music.

The owner of Real Records and CDs in Iowa City and radio host at KCCK-FM in Cedar Rapids has been listening to music most of his life, and he’s amazed at how much his 3-year-old grandson, Dexter, already has picked up.

“He is so unbelievably into music,” Kessler said. “All he wants to do is to be read to from books about music. This morning he was telling me all about Thelonious Monk.”

Kessler’s other grandchildren, Kole, 13, and Sy, 11, also love music and play guitar and piano, respectively.

“It’s totally different,” Kessler said of having grandchildren as opposed to his own kids. “You have a new perspective on it all. Every single moment means so much more than when it’s your own kid.”

“And there’s an unwritten pact with the grandkids. They know they can come to you for things that they couldn’t with their parents.”

A fourth grandson is on the way, due in April.

“Pretty soon I’ll have a quintet, or a sextet, or a baseball team,” he said.

— Jon Klinkowitz

Iowa City Press-Citizen -- March 12, 2009