IN MY ROOM

"There's a place where I can go and tell my secrets to...In my room, in my room". By the Beach Boys


Since my mom was the one who convinced my dad that I truly deserved my first guitar, it is her picture that holds a place of honor in my music room.

From a slim, ornate bronzed frame she smiles happily at whoever is taking the photograph. Dressed in a pretty pink and white vertically striped summer outfit, you can tell that she is truly happy as she poses on a sandy beach, her ankles being softly caressed by the foamy surf of the Irish Sea. Thanks, mom.

This room is my special place. It is filled with all the musical and memory treasures I have accumulated in my nearly sixty years on this planet. Many of the pieces I have now are light years away from that first poorly constructed but lovingly procured Sears guitar purchased for me by my parents. They could ill afford the expense at the time and I only wish now that they could see what they started with that long ago Christmas gift of theirs.

Inside the mirrored exterior of a wall-sized closet stands a four foot long tubular rack holding stringed instruments. A beautiful big blonde Guild acoustic faces the back of a shiny Ovation 12-string guitar. Behind the Guild, a sunburst colored mandolin and the now familiar rounded shape of a five-string banjo beckon my fingertips when the time is just right. In positions adjacent to each other, a purple bass guitar and half sized electronic keyboard patiently await their turns, while the lord of them all, my trusty cherry red, cream-color trimmed Les Paul perches on his stand.

I think back with wonder to the long ago days when the old high school rock band would beg to borrow a buddy's six speaker amp. The same amplifier would blast out our microphone (we could only afford one) as well as our fully turned up, screeching electric guitars. This all made for some nearly incomprehensible song lyrics but that was fine since we often didn't remember all of the words anyway. As long as there were girls and dancing, who cared?

These days if I want to sound good, I simply plug my incredibly beautiful, easy playing Taylor guitar into a Fender Acoustasonic amplifier and adjust a few dials. There are two music books available, each containing scores of tunes worked out or written during the past forty five years. If I had what I have now back in the mid-sixties, there is no doubt in my mind that I could have gone on to much greater musical fame or...I could have just as easily ended up like one of the Jimmies - Morrison or Hendrix.

I guess it's time for this fair to middlin' musician to go use some of this swell stuff. As I sit on my solid four legged stool crooning my little heart away, I will look with great fondness at the other objects surrounding me; Mom and Dad's wedding photo, a special brown and white souvenier Coors beer baseball bat bottle, a hand drawn "Superman Rising" poster, and a black and white collage of fellow musicians jamming in our old basement. That room was a truly special place with enormously huge, spectacular speakers...just ask my wife, she remembers them well.

Thanks again not only to Mom for getting me started, but also to all of you who contributed to making this small musical hideaway the unique place that it is. As a very large Hallmark card (a birthday gift from an old friend) sitting on a table near my music stand proclaims;

"It ain't over till one of us slurs 'Yer My Best Frrrriend!!!'"

You'll always be my best friends, especially in this place where I can temporarily forget "all my worries and my cares"...in my room, in my room.