Thanks and birthday thoughts…
Happy Wednesday! I am hoping that everyone had a great Thanksgiving holiday, and you are sweating off that 3rd slice of pumpkin pie. If not, that’s ok. We need extra layers in the winter to keep us functioning. And are we functioning? I remember getting home for Thanksgiving while in college, and I didn’t go to class for a whole week afterward. Homesick much, Steve? OK, that was a white lie. I made it to my music classes. Accounting and Finance – not so much.
And I suppose things turned out OK. I had to plead with my parents to let me stay in school. With an abysmal GPA and more visits to the local keg store than to my English class, they argued I really didn’t want it. And at the time, I didn’t. I knew I had to go to college – it’s what we did – but I wasn’t sure why. A lot of people argue they don’t need it. I cannot disagree more. Granted, we party, we meet women, we have to ‘figure things out’, but the ‘training ground’ for life that is college is pretty fascinating. I should have been more involved with things in school. I should have done this, I should have done that. Blah blah blah.
At the time, we do what we do, and the smart ones – the REALLY smart ones – have a plan. I had a plan. I have a degree in Marketing. I was going to work somewhere doing something and go from there. That was the plan. Now I ride around with a bunch of dudes in a bus and play music. Oh, the places you will go! I suppose the ‘hey let’s figure this out as we go’ approach has worked. I know a lot that can’t handle it. And it’s often difficult to try and explain to people.
My Grandparents were pretty amazing. I never knew my Mom’s Dad, but her Mother was one-of-a-kind. Being full-blooded Italian, she understood the music. My Dad’s parents were much simpler, yet equally unique, and inspiring. I found out my Grandpa played guitar at the 1933 World’s Fair. I walk around those streets and wonder sometimes if he walked a similar path. I don’t know a lot about his musical career, mostly the stories of the small town where they resided, and the cars he used to own.
I bring up family because that’s sort of what we do during the holiday season. We visited my wife’s family this year for Thanksgiving, and I found myself missing my Pennsylvania Thanksgivings. I was surrounded by her family, which is big and crazy and wonderful, and I loved showing off Henry for his first Thanksgiving. I also came to the stark reality that because I had him late, and barring any ’16 and pregnant’ action in his life, I probably won’t be a great-grandpa. I’m already pushing it to be a Grandpa. I just hope that I still have enough marbles rattling around to tell stories of Henry onstage at the Ryman as a baby to his kids.
And I only wax philosophical because in a few days I shall be a calendar year older. If in high school a teacher would have said ‘Write down the craziest life path you could choose’, never would I have picked this one. I played music in school, pretended to be cool (unquestionably the biggest dork in my class), but I never would have thought I would be here. Now. And this life: this crazy, unpredictable, sleep-depraved, ridiculous path of which I am fully immersed is the best place I could possibly be. Funny how it all works out sometimes.
But age, as they say, is just a number, and I look forward to the second half of my life with more fervor than the first half. There are some of you who have known my for most of my life, and I appreciate you sticking around through the roller coaster ride, and it means the world to me that you come out to shows all over the country. I also give a big thank you to my family for putting up with my gypsy lifestyle, although now I have been a Nashville resident for 10 years, so I am practically a native.
We are back on the road this week, and I will be celebrating my birthday at some random Holiday Inn in the middle of nowhere. I will miss my wife and family yet again, however, somehow, some way, it all feels OK.
See you on the road!
