The Blue Chair!

Saturday was so great. In the late afternoon Kinky called me to tell me that our good friends Ryan and Donna Hatch were over at the Lodge visiting him and that they had a 2015 Kerrville Blues & Roots Workshop t-shirt  to give to me. "Omg, can I come over?" I asked.

Two minutes later, I was hugging Donna and Ryan, in Kinky's kitchen, thanking them for giving me Ryan's expensive ticket to attend that awesome Blues workshop, at the Kerrville Folk Festival, taught by the incredibly talented, great Blues man, Reverend Robert B. Jones. And a few seconds later, they handed me the super cool t-shirt.

Then we all went outside to visit on Kinky's front porch. We laughed and talked about Robert's awesome workshop, guitars, the all of the wonderful and much needed rain that we luckily all received and the David Crosby's concert. "Tony can't go to it tonight, because he's feeling puny and I really want to go to it, because I love David Crosby so much," I said. "So when Tony cancelled on me, I called our dear friend Steve Pietzsch to see if he wanted to go with me instead. He loves Crosby as much as I do and he saw him in a Dallas concert, years ago and he told me that it was the night that David Crosby got busted. He told me that David played one set and then he went off stage and was immediately arrested for drugs. I really want to go, but I am night blind."

"Nancy," Donna said. "Why don't you let Ryan and me come pick you up and take you back home, so you can get to see Crosby? We'd love to do it..." After I asked them to let me think about it and call them back Tony showed up to visit with us.

Then we all sat and listened to several of the incredibly great cuts, off of Kinky's new CD, scheduled to be released in October. And Ryan and Donna loved it, too. And, before Tony and I hugged and adios-ed our dear friends I told them about how much I loved the Science Channel, especially their informative shows: NASA's Unexplained Files and MythBusters.

When we got back home I was still "on the fence" about going to David Crosby's concert, at the Kerrville Folk Festival, because I love him, but I didn't want Donna and Ryan to have to spend a lot of wasted time to come pick me up and take me back home. And fifteen minutes later, after purchasing a ticket Online, I said, "Tony, would you mind going outside to find me one of our collapsable chairs to take to the concert?"

At 7:45 I carefully parked and locked up Trigger, in the Kerrville Folk Festival's 12th row, in their parking lot, across the highway from the music festival and I was proudly wearing my new, super cool, burgundy colored, 2015 Kerrville Folk Festival Blues & Roots Workshop t-shirt that Ryan and Donna had given to me earlier. But I felt naked, crossing the highway, without carrying my new guitar, in my hand. Then things went south.

When I arrived at the amphitheater, I couldn't find Donna or Ryan anywhere, so I walked up and planted my blue collapsible chair next to a sweet-looking, gray-haired woman like me, that had two quilts spread out in front of her, on the ground and said to her, "I'm lost and I can't find my friends. Would you mind me sitting next to you?"

She smiled at me and shook her head up and down. So I opened up and planted the blue chair and then I took off to go buy a Coke, but instead ended up with a Dr. Pepper, because they had run out of it.

On my way back, I got turned around and could not remember exactly where I had left the blue chair, which was no big deal to me, because this happens all of the time to me. Anyway, I finally found my blue chair or so I thought.

I sat down in a blue chair, that looked just like mine, but the old woman and quilts were gone now and she had been replaced by a handsome, 40ish-looking, kind man, that uncomfortably looked and smiled at me, as I sat down, in the blue chair.

After looking at hundreds of blue chairs, that looked just like mine, it took me about three minutes to realize that I was not sitting in my blue chair, because my chair, bought from Walmart years ago, had black legs—not silver ones like the one I was sitting in, so I said to the nervous looking stranger, sitting beside me, "Sorry, I think that I am lost and I don't think this is my blue chair after all." Then I got up and quickly walked away, to hopefully go find my blue chair.

As luck would have it I finally found my blue chair, far back, on the right side of the stage area. When I laughed and joked to the nice, friendly woman about me getting lost and accidentally sitting in someone elses' blue chair, she laughed with me. And while I was sitting next to her and her family and listening to some great musicians, I kept looking around hoping to spot our dear friends Donna and Ryan.

To Be Continued...(Sorry, Mari. This is a pretty long story with a happy ending.)

Y'all have a great evening!

Elk and Howlin' Wolf!

Today has been great. Early this morning, before I took off for my 3rd Blues workshop, at the Kerrville Folk Festival, Tony reminded me that if I ever get lost again, I should stay where I am and sit down and wait, because eventually I'll be found. And he asked me to please call him as soon as I arrive at my destination.

I appreciated Tony's concern about me getting lost all of the time, but his advice didn't make sense to me, so I told him, "Tony, I can't just go sit down and wait if I get lost, at the folk festival, because for one thing I won't be able to get myself back up without asking a volunteer to help me, a snake or some fire ants might come along and get me and besides that everyone will think that I am really stoned out of my head. So if I get lost today I will just stop and ask someone for directions to the Threadgill Theater." Tony chuckled, looked down and just shook his head sideways. Then he asked me if he could take a picture of my 3rd poser outfit, before I took off, in Trigger.

When Trigger and I pulled out and turned left, on 16, I hadn't driven fifty feet, when I had to stop, because there was a huge, confused-looking elk crossing the highway, to our side of the road.  When he made to our side, across the street from the Medina Children's Home, I drove slowly past him, so not to spook him. I wanted to help him get back to our neighbor's ranch, that he had escaped from, but I didn't, because I knew that elks can be dangerous and hurt you. So I whispered a little prayer for the big guy instead.

So when I arrived and parked, at the folk festival's parking lot, I immediately called Tony.

"Hello?" Tony said. "Thanks for calling me. Are you lost or did you make it to the theater?"

"I've made it to the parking lot, but that's not why I am calling you, Tony." After I had told him about the poor, lost elk, he told me that he call our neighbors to let them know.

Before we adios-ed each other again, Tony asked me, to please call him if and when I arrived at Threadgill's. And ten minutes later I happily called Tony back to let him know that I had arrived, at the workshop.

Reverend Robert B. Jones' awesome Blues Guitar workshop today was unbelievably great! We started out tuning our guitars to open G and, in no time flat, Reverend Robert had all of us learning how to strum and play super cool riffs just like the Blues legends: Robert Johnson, Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf, etc. 

And everyone was wearing smiles, on their faces, as we practiced and jammed together, because Reverend Jones is such a fabulous musical instructor/musician that he had taken the mystery out of the Blues and made it so easy and simple for us to learn and understand. 

No one wanted his awesome Blues workshop to come to an end today, because we were having so much fun and excited about what all we had learned about playing the Blues, in the past three days. So on my way back home I decided that I am going to save up my money, so I can attend his unbelievably great workshop, next year and hopefully my dear friend Ryan Hatch will be able to attend it with me. "Thank you, Donna and Ryan Hatch for giving me Ryan's ticket to Reverend B. Jones' more than awesome Blues workshop! It was a total blast!"

When I got back home, Tony told me that I needed to call Kinky. So I called Kinky. We talked about the weather, The Friedmans, me getting lost yesterday, him also seeing several lost elk, on the highway today and my Blues workshop. And five minutes ago, Kinky called me again, "Nance, do you want to come over and go on a hike with me and The Friedmans?"

And that is about it for tonight, because I am going over to Kinky's, right now, so we can go hiking.

Y'all have a great evening!

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!