Kerrville Folk Festival's Roots Blues Workshop!

Omg! Today has been more than great! Early this morning, I took a real bath even though Tony had requested that I not take one due to our temporary self-imposed water restrictions. "Nancy, you don't stink, I promise. Just take another sponge bath and..." So I waited and took a real bath when he went outside to feed the dogs and clean their pens.

When Tony had finished doing our morning chores outside and walked back inside The Cabin, I was clean, dressed, nervous and nearly ready to go to the Kerrville Folk Festival's Roots/Blues Workshop, thanks to our dear friends Ryan and Donna Hatch, who had given me Ryan's ticket. "Nance, it is time for you to leave and if you don't mind I want to drive you there."

"Okay. I just need to finish lacing up my hiking boots," I half-hollered from our bedroom. Then I heard Tony chuckling to himself, in the kitchen.

When I walked into the kitchen, he said, "You look great and you don't stink, but why are you wearing your hiking books?"

"So I'll fit in and not stand out," I replied, feeling totally relieved and knowing that I really didn't stink and him never finding out about my earlier bathing activities. When I grabbed my guitar, Tony grabbed his camera and told me that he wanted to take a picture of me and here it is.

Tony dropped me off near the ticket gate and drove away, as I picked up my official, purple folk festival  wristband and got directions to where the Threadgill Theater was located. "Excuse me Ma'am," a very polite, nice man, about my age, said to me. "Why don't you hop into the cart and I'll drive you over to it?" So I thanked him and then climbed into the golf cart's back seat, with my guitar and we took off.

When I arrived almost everyone attending this awesome workshop was there and the three super nice, friendly, extremely talented musician, instructors were sitting up on stage and they were jamming and they sounded fantastic. So, I looked around and decided to sit down, somewhere in the middle, behind a friendly man and his super cool service dog.

Five minutes later, the faculty, Steve James, Roy Book Binder and Reverend Robert B. Jones, stood up and introduced themselves to all of us. Then they asked us to please pick the Gospel, Roots or Blues group that we wanted to participate in. I picked Reverend Robert B. Jones' Blues group.

A few minutes later, every one had moved to their designated workshop areas, inside the theatre. Then the reverend reintroduced himself to our fifteen member group and suggested that we take turns and tell our names and how many years that we've have been playing the guitar.

There were three other women, in our friendly, cozy workshop and yes, I was definitely the oldest one of them all and everyone else for that matter and I was so grateful that I had sneaked a bath and I didn't stink. I sat there nervously listening to the friendly men and women tell their first names and say things like, "I've been playing for one year. I've been playing for ten years. I bought this guitar yesterday..." Since I was next to the last I quickly started calculating how many years that I've been playing guitar, because I knew that I had all of these much younger guitar pickers beat.

Seconds later, everyone turned around to hear me say, "Hi, I'm Nancy and I've been playing guitar for over fifty-three years." 

Then several people gasped, some eyes got really big and you could hear jaws dropping to the floor and then I heard some man say, "Wow! That's incredible!" and then another man say, "Oh my god!" It was totally hilarious and it made me laugh out loud, as I blushed, because I am sure that they must have thought that I was in my late seventies.

Anyway, I totally loved attending Reverend Jones' Blues guitar workshop and I can't believe how much that I have already learned from him, because he is such a great instructor. In fact, his workshop is the best Blues workshop that I've ever been to. And I highly recommend it to anyone interested in improving their guitar playing skills. 

Tonight I've already decided that tomorrow morning when I rise and shine that I will take a stupid sponge bath, to conserve our temporary low water supply and I know exactly what I am going to wear to the workshop. I'll be wearing my hiking boots, a pair of 501 Levi's, that beautiful, blue bandana that Pat Helms gave to me and my super cool, B.B. King, black, long-sleeved t-shirt. And that is about it for tonight. "Thank you, Ryan and Donna, for giving me the ticket to attend this awesome guitar workshop! I absolutely love it and I can't wait to go to it tomorrow and Thursday."

Y'all have a great evening!