Christmas is Coming!

    

29 November 2013

     Here's to all those folks you don't normally think about at Christmas-time. If they're professionals and their lives depend upon it, they're working hard for the buck to pay for all the Christmas and holiday bills. I'm talking about the musicians who are providing the background music to your shopping stress or you're having a nice night out away from the bustling crowds or the family demands. Or maybe they're providing the music at a church service or a Catholic mass. I used to do that kind of music. That's the full extent of my musical talent and now I just plunk a guitar once in a while to entertain the squirrels out on my back-deck. I have some odd Christmas memories related to guitars and music. Lately, my thoughts are more directed toward how much music plays a big part in my life and how I've become friends with like-minded fellow-travelers. I blame it all on bluegrass, but you've already figured that out about me.


     When I was 7 or 8 years old I was diagnosed with some sort of heart condition and that started a depressing period in my childhood. It required numerous trips from my home town and into the Children's Hospital in Pittsburgh for a lot of testing and consultation. We had to navigate all these narrow streets on the North Side. Mom would usually take me to lunch at a Hungarian restaurant. Next to the restaurant was a musty old music store with lots of guitars and mandolins hanging in the dirty windows. I don't remember the names of these places - either the restaurant or the music store. But I remember that I wanted one of those guitars and I remember thinking that I could probably play it with great efficiency and that it would take nothing to learn to play one. Like all childhood fantasies, it never came to pass. The vision though, lingers. Vividly. Even today I can't pass up a guitar store. I have to go in and see what they have on the shelf. I relate all this because I've been talking to a lot of guitar-pickers and reading about them, and usually they'll start a story with, "You know, the first time I ever saw a guitar," or  "You know the first time I ever picked up a guitar was at my Uncle Frank's place, and . . ."  They'll get that crazed look in their eyes. I admire these guys. You can learn a lot talking to them about guitars and guitar-picking. I also admire any musician who's trying to make a living at it and providing all that background music to our piddling existence here on earth.

     A few years ago I had the opportunity to drive through that same old section of Pittsburgh. Everything's gone. I recognized nothing. Urban renewal and urban re-design had taken away the whole neighborhood, so there goes a lot of childhood memories for thousands who've gone the way of old age. But the Thanksgiving and Christmas season brings it all back - vividly- especially when I'm in a crowd and I hear background music. I'll stop and listen to the music, actually concentrate on it, before I'll concentrate on the task at hand. The hustle and bustle isn't that important to me. I'll think about the musicians who produced it. They were all kids once who were maybe fascinated by some old dusty music store. Now they're providing my entertainment either in front of me or as background music for the rest of my life.

     And about the heart condition. I spent a year bed-ridden as an invalid. It took another year to build my body back up to normal. I entered the Navy and the military doctors passed me with flying colors. I transferred into the infantry in the Marine Corps, served six years, and had to get a routine physical upon discharge. One doctor and two heart specialists found nothing wrong or any evidence of there ever having been a "heart condition." The doctors just shook their heads. There you go Ed, bamboozled again by a cruel world! I love life too much to be bitter about a lost year of my life. All that time wasted as an invalid, useless medical tests and trips to the North Side in Pittsburgh - but what pleasant memories of  Hungarian goulash and old, musty music stores. If you know a musician, instead of just wishing him or her a "Merry Christmas," buy them a Baked Ham and thank them for the gift they give you - the Music of Life.