Never Too Late To Learn

As you know from previous entries, I recently
began to re-learn to play guitar. I wondered
if waiting until I was in my fifties to do so
was crazy, but it doesn't seem to be.

I turned 54 yesterday and had just about the
best birthday I can ever remember having. I
was intending to just sort of pretend it was
not happening this year, but it happened
anyway.

I work with a lot of musicians in this area
and they all seem to be the nicest people
that I've ever encountered. Not that I
expected them be monsters or anything,
I just had no idea HOW nice people can be.

A blues guitar player named Larry Tillery
came over yesterday and played guitar with
me all day. This guys is a huge bundle of
talent and I am always blown away when
watching his fingers fly effortlessly over
the fret board. I often wonder if I could
get my fingers to move that fast even
without a guitar in hand.

Now Larry's band plays all over the place
and he's a busy guy. He could have spent
his day ANYwhere but he chose to spend it
here. He never acted like I was new to
this or gave me a feeling that he wished
he was playing with someone more experienced.
He showed me licks that I'll be able to use
in the future and a few tricks that I would
have probably never learned on my own.

We played guitar and sang for hours. The
whole day just seemed to zip by. If I got
stuck, Larry would just say "look, try it
like this" and show me a better/easier way.
He never once said, "look old lady, this
is crazy, why don't you take up knitting?"
Yeah that was meant to be funny but true.

During that afternoon, my best friend from
high school dropped by and brought a big
bag of my favorite burgers with her. To
hell with the diet, it's my birthday! At
least that's what I told myself. She hung
our for a while and listened to the music
and seemed to have a great time.

Thinking Larry would have had all of my
playing he could take, I expected him to
go on home as the evening approached.
But he had one more trick up his sleeve
and that was that he and his girlfriend
were taking me out for sushi. I ADORE
SUSHI. He and his girlfriend don't even
eat it. He did it because he knows it's
my favorite.

We sat at one of the hibachi tables. I
dined on sushi while the guy threw knives
around and made volcanoes out of onions
right there on the grill. He had a big
combo of different foods going but never
seemed to miss a beat...I wondered if
my hands could move that fast. Maybe
they can, but I'll stick with getting
just my fingers to move faster. Guitar
strings just seem safer in my hands
than huge sharp knives do.