GUITAR DAD

My wonderful hometown of Winston-Salem, N.C., is widely known for its cigarettes. R.J. Reynolds, the nation's second-largest tobacco company, is based there and produces one of every three smokes purchased in the United States. No matter how much we vilify tobacco, there's no denying the enormity of that business and its impact on the "Twin City."
 
But Winston, as the locals shorten it, has diversified itself over the years, spawning sizeable health care and banking industries. The city's also home to Wake Forest University, the headquarters of Krispy Kreme Doughnuts and the maker of Texas Pete, one of the best-selling hot sauces in the Southeast. Those with thespian inclinations may be familiar with the local University of North Carolina School of the Arts, one of the nation's finest public arts conservatories.
 
In my mind the greatest product of Winston-Salem was its super-cool 1980s music scene. My fair city produced a handful of influential "alternative" rock bands, including the dB's and Let's Active.

Another local group of that era was the Vanguard, a quartet of particularly determined, if self-indulgent, musicians that included none other than Guitar Dad, well before his "Dad" days. Oh, and wacky-but-brilliant piano man Ben Folds hails from Winston-Salem (he and I played in a combo called the Flatheads during our senior year at R.J. Reynolds High School). Adding to the town's musical mystique is the fact that REM recorded Chronic Town at Mitch Easter's local recording studio and continued to work with hometown hero Easter, an especially gifted producer and musician, on subsequent albums Murmur and Reckoning.
 
Ahhh, the sweet sounds of yesteryear swirl around in my head, and I long to spend more time in Winston. My parents and a brother live there, and Guitar Dad packs up the wife and kids to visit about once a year. But it's never enough.
 
Even The New York Times thinks Winston-Salem is pretty cool – click here for an article from its travel section.

Maybe it's a carryover from my reporter days, but I constantly find myself reaching for a notebook. A lot of my jottings are mundane details that simply connect the dots in my everyday life: driving directions, lists, reminders of the things I need to do for my wife or children, restaurant recommendations from friends.

Other times my notes are more inspired, more a reflection of what I find important and remarkable. Someone will say something clever or particularly perceptive and I'll scribble it down. An extraordinary sentence, phrase or quote will jump off the page of a book or magazine, and I'll capture it for some future use. I'll hear a cool song on the radio and make note of its title, with plans to figure out how to play it on guitar. Or an idea for a blog post will pop into my head and I'll sketch out a beginning, middle and end.

Keep in mind that all of this personal note-taking comes on top of the sizable amount of ink I drain onto notepads during my daily grind in corporate communications.

Travel writer Bruce Chatwin viewed jotting notes as a means to better understanding one's world and ultimately oneself. He considered his notebooks invaluable extensions of his experience, his spirit. "Losing my passport was the least of my worries; losing a notebook was a catastrophe," he famously said.

Not sure I'm that serious about it. But I do often find myself wondering why other people aren't writing stuff down.