This weekend we're celebrating a major milestone – my wife's 40th birthday. We'll be blowing out candles and eating cake, presenting Mommy with cards and flowers, and letting her know how much she is appreciated. We'll also hand over a special gift, something she would never purchase herself but agreed would be nice to have – a hot pink iPod Nano.
In recent days we've worked together to build her iTunes library with all her favorite songs, including 80s dance hits, Broadway numbers and a vast array of rock and pop tunes, including several one-hit wonders she hasn't dusted off in years. She's excited to revisit all this great music, and I'm excited to help make it happen.
But her coolest gift of all is her upcoming trip to Arizona, where she'll spend four nights with her brother and sister-in-law, unencumbered by the kids, Guitar Dad and her task-heavy routine. I'm thinking that iPod will come in handy on her flights and in her down time. Happy Birthday, Honey. We love you.
The quarterly Guilford College alumni magazine just arrived in the mail. It's always fun to flip through its pages looking for familiar faces, names or just photos of campus that bring back pleasant memories.
With this issue I was reminded that it's been 20 years since I graduated from Guilford. Wow, that's a freakin' long time. It seems like just last week I was going to class and keg parties, skipping class and raising a ruckus, and making good friends at Guilford, a small liberal arts school in leafy Greensboro, N.C.
But two decades have passed since I earned my degree, and while my college education has served me extremely well over the years, boy am I feeling old. Pictured above is Milner Hall, the largest dorm at Guilford and the place I called home as a freshman.
My son and I spent a few hours at Fun Spot the other day. It’s an Orlando amusement park with go-karts, bumper cars, a Ferris wheel, carousel and tons of indoor games, most notably air hockey, my son’s new favorite.
Let me tell you – those go-karts are crazy fun! The instant we accelerated in our two-seat, gas-powered machine, my little cohort was screaming in exhilaration and working his steering wheel enthusiastically (the one not actually connected to anything). He loved every second of speeding up the hills and around the curves of the multi-level track. The biggest rush was cresting the highest point and zooming down the steep incline to the lowest level.
I fondly recall the excitement of riding go-karts with my dad back in the early 70s in Myrtle Beach, our home away from home when I was growing up. You can bet that Guitar Dad will return to Fun Spot soon and often.
Tropical Storm Fay is blowing across Central Florida this evening, its dark and eerie clouds zipping overhead. Rain is coming down hard and the winds are alternately calm and howling. As you might imagine, we're all very pleased this hasn't strengthened into a hurricane, although the latest forecast indicates it just might (after heading into the Atlantic and before boomeranging back into land). Fay is here to remind us that nature's totally in control and, when you live in Florida, you must learn to embrace hurricane season.
The late Grant Green never hit it big like fellow jazz guitarists George Benson and Wes Montgomery. His career was brief and bumpy, marred by a three-year absence from performing in the late 1960s because of heroin addiction and its attendant evils.
But guitarists in the know are deeply grateful for his bluesy sensibility and sparkling tone. I'm an obsessive fan of his straight-ahead jazz on the Blue Note label from 1962-1966 and, to a lesser extent, his funk-influenced later work.
The only video I can find of Green is this concise clip from the mid-70s, when he shared the stage with Kenny Burrell and Barney Kessel, jazz giants in their own right. The immensively gifted Green would be dead of a heart attack just a few years later, in 1979, at the much-too-early age of 43.
We're running around getting everything lined up for our son's first day in kindergarten. Backpack, crayons, glue sticks, blunt-tip scissors, Purell. Of course we're sending positive vibes his way. The statements "Aren't you excited?" and "You're going to have a great time!" come out of our mouths a lot. The good news is, he's pumped. He's an affable little guy who'll make new friends fast.
Like a lot of 5-year-olds, he learns quickly and retains pretty much everything he hears, so I'm sure he'll excel in his studies. He went to preschool at a faith-based private school, and now he's heading into one of the largest elementary schools in the Orlando system. I'd be lying if I said Mom and I weren't a touch apprehensive. But we're both products of the public schools and we're planning to go that route with our kids.
As our boy tackles big, bad kindergarten, our little princess heads into private preschool, a milestone in itself, where she'll be coddled a bit more. Parenting is such a journey – and so much more fun than I ever imagined it would be.
Guitar Dad has learned a few things in his day. Most notably, that you never stop learning things.
Below are the basic tenets of my philosophical platform, gathered from years of trying, failing, giving it another go, occasionally emerging victorious, reinventing myself and ultimately realizing that peace, love and understanding are what matter most.
> Word hard at what you do well
> Laugh like a kid
> Don't be afraid to say nothing
> Get excited about the small stuff
> Show everyone enough respect
> Take as much time as you need to get things right
> Listen carefully to what matters
> Tune out all meaningless chatter
> Invest liberally (time and money) in what's important to you
> Go on, take a chance
> Never underestimate the intellect of a child
> Work smart, play smart
> Carve out your share of alone time
> When playing electric guitar, remember that great tone requires great volume
See what the real wise men have to say here.
Most parents will agree: You've got to get away from the kids occasionally. That's why my wife and I indulge in "date night" once a week. We have a wonderfully reliable, and just plain wonderful, babysitter who spends a couple hours with the little ones while we're away having dinner and just catching our breath together. It's a highlight of the week for Guitar Dad.
A particularly wise colleague once told me that your family commitments must always start with your spouse. When you get that relationship right, then your relationships with your children, and with all family members for that matter, fall right into place. For me, that advice holds absolutely true. To make sure your marriage is a well-oiled machine, don't underestimate the value of leaving the kids behind once in a while. Or in our case, once a week. Every week.
Seems like I'm always itching to hit the road. Whether it's a day trip to the beach or a long-haul flight to another continent, immersing one's self in unfamiliar territory is exhilarating for the mind and body – and just plain fun. There's the anticipation that builds before the trip, the trip itself, and the mental reverberations of the experience long afterward.
Many a wise traveler has opined on the virtues of seeing the world:
“The world is a book and those who do not travel read only one page.” – St. Augustine
“Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines, sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.” – Mark Twain
“There are no foreign lands. It is the traveler only who is foreign.” – Robert Louis Stevenson
“Our battered suitcases were piled on the sidewalk again; we had longer ways to go. But no matter, the road is life.” – Jack Kerouac
“One's destination is never a place, but a new way of seeing things.” – Henry Miller
“Once you have traveled, the voyage never ends but is played out over and over again in the quietest chambers. The mind can never break off from the journey.” – Pat Conroy
Click here for a few of Guitar Dad’s travel narratives.
I complain a lot about all the time and money it takes to keep our backyard pool clean and swimmable. Let me tell you, though: The return on investment is huge during our stifling summers. Our family can't get enough of the splishing and splashing these days. It's great fun for everybody and really gives the kids a workout. When we're indoors, my offspring are usually bouncing off the walls with excess excitement, so anything we can do to burn their fuel is a good thing indeed.
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