1. Put dishes in the dishwasher without washing them first
2. Set the thermostat where I want it
3. Keep the TV on hoops all day
4. Leave house with the TV on
5. Watch Sharknado 2
6. Turn the living room into a banjo studio/sports center
7. Refreeze meat I've thawed to cook and then changed my mind
8. Eat her snacks
9. Drink too much coffee
10. Shave on the couch while watching hoops
11. Miss her
What am I after? What is my goal?
Funny that it is easier for me to describe what my goals are not.
I do not want to play in a band.
I do not want to be on a stage. I do not want to be anyplace where people would ask me to play a particular tune. However, I would like to be good enough that I could do that if I wanted to, the confidence to turn it down because I am good enough to do what I want and have nothing to prove.
I don't want to "jam" with others. While I did enjoy a recent jam camp, I did not leave with the sense that I had discovered something I wanted to do. Weird.
I do not want to change the strings regularly, but I do.
I like playing by myself. I like trying a new tune or lick and getting through it. It's sort of like running. A very solitary activity. I like the challenge, actually I love the challenge.
I like playing for my grandchildren, who have no expectations and no real sense of what is good or bad about my playing. They just like to see me do it.
I like talking banjo with other players, I like that a lot.
Two hours a day, every day. Every day.
I like the way my fingers move across the strings. I like making music. I like the theory and science behind the music.
I would say that I love my banjo, but love seems the wrong word to express my feelings for anything non-human. I do love the way I feel when I play the banjo. Capable. Confident. Smart. A learning man. An aging man who does not waste his time in retirement. He does things.
Today I watched the musical Camelot, the Richard Burton version. In it Merlin helps young Arthur in his education by getting him to "think like" other creatures. The owl, the perch, the hawk.
I don't know what this has to do with the banjo, but my brain is chewing on it. Perhaps I need to think like a banjo. What would that be? "It's dark in here", "Hang on shoulder, hang on wall, hang on shoulder, hang on wall," "My strings itch".
The more I practice and the better I become, the more private my playing. Another counterintuitive aspect of my life. Having spent my business career on stage, my retirement career is much more in the shadows.The gooder I get, the smaller the audience.
It is indeed the most intense aspect of my life.
At times even more so than hospice care, or "waking the dead" as one of my patients likes to call it.
It burns me good.
The following are the books I read in 2022. Most of them are quite good. A few were not worth reading, several are worth reading a second time. Although I do not read much science fiction, I got started on the Foundation series by Isaac Asimov and had to read them all.
A book that took me almost 50 years to read, The Dreaming Earth. I started it in high schook, got bored with it, lost it some time in the 70s. I thought about it last year and decided to find it online. I did, and am glad to have done so. Nice little sci-fi story. The Best Loved Poems of the American People was a book in my parents home as a child. A wonderful collection.
I hope to someday read again Marina and Lee, and Churchill's six volume account of WWII.
The worst book of the bunch was "I lived to tell it all" by George Jones. He was a bad man who treated people terribly and squandered his wealth and talent. He wrote this book to brag about the amount of liquor, drugs, and human souls he consumed.
Another loser was "Pre-Colonial Black Africa" by Chiop. Basically a rant that everything good in the world came from P-C B A. World religions, economic structure, democracy, music, art, writing, mathematics, astronomy, skittles, tacos, Buddy Holly, pickup trucks, checkers. The writer makes the case that even the pre-colonial slavery of Africans by Africans was a good kind.
As a Catholic I am supposed to like Flannerty O'Connor and see how her Catholicism is relected in her writing. If I am a proper intellectual Catholic, this will just ooze out of her brain into mine. Didn't happen. I liked one, one, only one short story. A Good Man is Hard to Find. I asked my wife to read it but she did not.
The books are listed in the order I read them.
A note to my grandaughter who came to the earth on 3 March 2022.
I may name my banjo after you, we'll see. I have been trying to contrive a name for it. It has five strings and you are my fifth grandchild. That is a stupid connection but it's all I have.
Before you were born I was at your house, seeing your brother and checking on your mom. She was a day or two away from going to the hospital for your birth. As I was leaving she pulled me close in a hug and said, "Dad, would you say a prayer for me?". I stood there in the entryway, among a stroller, winter boots, scarfs with the woman I first held as a tiny baby decades ago.
I don't know exactly what I prayed for that day when I put my arms around your mom. It was a bit about her and a bit about you. But I do know this. All of the deep things I have ever wanted for my daughter were realized in that little hall. My little girl, when deep into womanhood, asked me to pray for her. To that same Lord that she worshipped as a toddler. That is what I wanted when I first held her, when I first whispered the name of our Lord in her tiny ear. That when I was old that she would hold as tightly to Christ at 40 as she did at 4. As I was driving home I had this sense that every dream I ever dreamed and every prayer I ever prayed for her had been answered in that moment.
On the 5th day of March, when you were two days old I held you for the first time. Like your mother, the first word you heard from my lips was "Jesus". The first time you felt my hand, it was to trace the sign of the cross on your forehead.
Johanna, your safe arrival on earth was an answer to many prayers. Many more prayers are being lifted up for you now. It is my deep desire that when your mother and father are my age, that they will thank God for the faith they see in you. That does not waver. That does not tremble.
I never was a serious student of golf. I am a very serious student of banjo. But there is something in my head and physiology that links the two.
During the brief periods I tried to learn golf, I always had a major issue with whiffing, or just as bad, topping the ball. My body held back as though a normal divot would break my wrist, throw out my back, break my arm, or whatever. I still have fun on the golf course and there is nothing like a good foursome and a good cigar.
How does this relate to banjo? I whiff. Especially with my thumb. I miss the 5th G string, or hit it much too often when the 4th D is the target. The same thing happens, though not as often with all the rest of my fingers at various times. I also have my banjo version of topping, hitting the strings too lightly, not giving a good resounding pluck. Things will be chugging along fine, i'm moving through the tune, and then comes a crucial period in a roll when suddenly the strings go eerily faint. Like I'm suddenly afraid someone will hear me!
The golf stuff doesn't bother me, for I am not a golfer. The banjo stuff does, as I am banjo player, at least in my eyes and those of my grandkids.
I have been meaning to write something about the banjo. In October of 2020 I faced a long winter and a Covid lockdown. So I wondered, what am I going to have to show for all this time of lockdown? What will I have accomplished, or have to show from all of this?
I decided I would learn to play either the guitar or banjo. I sought the advice of various articles online, as to which was easier to learn. It was a toss-up. Pick one. So I went to Amazon and search for a good beginner banjo. I bought a cheapo for around $200.
It was a bad banjo, but I didn't know that for a while. It did get me through those first months of deciding whether I wanted to stick with it. Last summer I spent about 6X as much as originally and bought a good one. Deering Blackgrass Special. I like it. I wouldn't say I love it, as it is a demon that has taken over most of my mornings. But I'd rather be with it, than without it, I suppose.
I am 65 years old. Learning a new skill is difficult but in retirement I need difficult things to do. Things that challenge me both physically and mentally. This is one of the most challenging things I have attempted. It is right up there with passing all three levels of the CFA exams in succession.
I practice around 2 hours each day, every day that I am in town. That is most days. The only day I take a break is on days when I have a lesson. On those days I just do the one hour lesson. My teacher is a master, and a hard driver. But I need to be driven, so I don't complain, much.
From the first time I picked up this devil, I have been mesmerized with it. How is it that one can do one thing with the right hand and something completely different with the left? How is this happening? Day to day there is no noticeable progress. But I keep records. Watch that metronome. Write things down. I am playing a few tunes at half the speed a professional would, but a few months ago I played them at a quarter speed. Slow progress, but progress.
Chords, licks, rolls. Chords, licks, rolls. Memorization. Manipulating my old fingers just right so that I don't buzz the string or deaden an adjacent one. Don't look at the right hand. Going too fast and going too slow. Playing for my favorite audiences of one, my wife, or one of my grandkids. The oldest grandkids, age 5 and 7, think I'm pretty good. If I can keep up with them, where ten years from now they still think I'm good, even if they don't like the music, will be an accomplishment. That's my goal.
