Now that I’m a 1000+ blog poster, I wanted to take a minute to offer thanks to some of the key people who have each helped, in their own way, to make this one glorious ride so far.
I want to thank Linda, an 8th grader (I was in seventh grade) for telling me I didn’t need to smoke for her (a goddess and the only girl in the entire school with an ample bosom) to go out with me. She saved me from a lifetime of the habit and I sort of gravitated to her for some reason.
I want to thank Sheila, in England, who corrected my clumsy lovemaking style.
“Too high!”
“Too Low!”
“Get ready!”
“Now push!”
I did you proud girl!
I want to thank my big brother (for the umpteenth time) for never turning on me, even after I completely demolished his upscale bar in Santa Barbara’s financial district.
I have spoken of that night, and it would have gone down in my Top Five all-time fun nights if it hadn’t been my brother’s place.
He never turned on me.
I want to belatedly thank my high school coach (I’m sure he has passed by now) who had found out I had destroyed my left shoulder and was hiding the injury from him. He told me he would miss me, but he asked me to get my shoulder fixed before he’d let me back.
I want to thank Cathy for what I felt was the purest love I had known and I want to thank Kathy for being the first woman to call me on myself and who had the power to leave me.
I hope they’ve both enjoyed great lives.
I want to thank my mom and step-dad for being on my shit so much in 9th and 10th grades. Every time I’d get in trouble and the accompanying “grounding,” I would retreat from the world and play my Sears Kent electric guitar for hours on end.
That gift has provided me with playing small intimate gigs and large festival stages for fifty-six years and I’m not done yet.
Special musical thanks to my high school friend and bandmate with the Purple Mirror and the infamous Baby Beatles, circa 1968, Jim Driver. I was learning real basic stuff on my guitar and then Jim showed me bar chords and I took off.
Thanks to my father Ed for passing on his love of animals to me. It is something I believe very strongly about. I tell the kids down at the Humane Society that they are doing God’s work; I tell them that if He were here on Earth, He would take care of the sick, elderly, and animals himself.
I truly believe that.
I feel great respect and admiration for healthcare workers, having just completed a hospital stay. They sent me a survey to fill out about the staff and their attitudes and manners, and truth be told, the only asshole in the whole place was…..me.
Stay well.
