My musical career, or why I went into automotive

Tribute to my dad. These were his peeps at a run down shack in the delta where people went to hear music.

For some long forgotten reason I started playing the flute very young. I do not have an ear for music. I could not tune in my own instrument. I was technically proficient and as an A type personality I practiced. But I was never the best. I always sat second chair because of the tuning thing. After my parents popped for the flute I was stuck playing it for rest of my school days. Almost. I quit in my senior year and you would have thought I had killed a fatted calf in the parking lot. Private lessons did not help, I just never had it in me.

My brothers escaped, the oldest was supposed to play guitar and that petered out after a time. The younger knocked all his teeth out pretending he was Evel Kneivel, that kinda shut down his using his mouth to play music and my parents were not gonna go the drum route. My son, Punkin Head is a drummer and a very good one.

I had favorite songs I played and none I hated. I hated the marching band and the wool uniforms in summer. I hated that concert band performed on nights and weekends and my parents never came.

Favorite always. And Audrey, oh my, and to this day I have nothing from Tiffany's.

This was an experiment in hell. The band director wanted us to do the long version for the spring concert and  very few in our band could handle the range of this music.

So I got my love of music from my dad and we never shared it. He shared with Big Daddy, not even his sons. Big Daddy loves music and so does our son.

So here is my all time favorite. Period, hands down, the best of the best.

Cringe worthy stories from the past

The Graduate, Punkin Head and the Fiancee.

The 999 roses wrap.

For a while now I have been remembering incidents from the past that just make me wince. But some of these stories make me wonder why they bother me now when they did not phase me at the time. When I was first at Plant Loco one of my cohorts was leaning on a new vehicle in the audit bay waiting for the main  ass kicking meeting of the day. The Plant Manager walked in and as he started speaking he came over and gently removed her from the vehicle. She said she wore that skin for a long time.

I am wearing the skin now and wonder why it sometimes did not phase me at the time. Okay, sometimes it did but today's story did not.

We moved so many times when I was growing up I forgot counts of the places. I do remember I went to 12 schools in 12 years. Amazing as I spent the last 3 years of high school in the same school and 3 years at the same lower school. Anyway in the 8th grade (or so) I moved to a new school and was enrolled in band. This band director wanted me to audition, I thought this was a hoot as it was a first but okey dokey. I played Georgy Girl which is quite difficult on the flute and he said okay, sit last chair. We had a football game that weekend and for some reason he had me play the cymbals. The large, hand held, slap together cymbals. I had no clue how to do this and the drummer told me he would stick his arm out when I was supposed to crash the cymbals. This did not work out well and I just smacked the hell out of those cymbals during the fight song on the field. I was never asked to play the cymbals again.

What I can't believe is at the time it did not embarrass me a bit. I had never been in marching band, never marched in formation, did not know one person in the band and just went out and made a total fool of myself.  Today I would never have the nerve to do that.