Unusual cloud formation over Epcot Center, Disney World.
My big brother and I went off into the world after our high school years, and saw little of each other for many years. I went to college out of state, to war, to college, to law school, and began my career in Miami. He entered a long-term training program at Caterpillar in Peoria, and embarked on a career there. We had marriages, we ended marriages. We weren’t estranged, we just went different ways. For some years, after my divorce, I pretty much ignored my birth family, and was even distant and not very nice to my mom. Somehow, some way, I woke up (from years of depression and dissolute living) at some point and got close to mom. Truth is, my Honey had a lot to do with this. Along the way Don and I got close again. I’ve been visiting at least once a year for a long time, sometimes with my Honey, sometimes alone.
Anyway, he and I have always loved music, and had a lot to share in that direction. He plays guitar, banjo (5 string), and bass. He also has talent in the recording studio end. Despite this mutual love, we never really played together much. Well, he arrived here yesterday afternoon from the grim Midwest winter, greeted by us and a beautiful day in the 80s. We ate out twice, relaxed, and, late in the evening, I got out my guitar and fretless bass and we played for a while, plugged into my PA system. Maybe some rust on the wheels, but what a sound. The acoustic songs I do sounded so rich and full with that bass underneath. Happy times, happy times.
A little aside for those unfamiliar with fretless basses. It’s basically just an electric bass guitar with a smooth neck like the big upright acoustic double basses. Without the frets, the sound is more mellow, one might say, with somewhat less sustain (which can be ameliorated by hand vibrato). Because the string is not supported by a fret when you play it, it can vibrate against the fingerboard a bit and make this wonderful growl. I’ll search for a music video or refer my readers to a sample somewhere when I get a minute. Don is more used to fretted basses, but he took to my fretless pretty quickly.
So, we’ve got 9 days or so, more if I can talk him into extending. After Friday morning it will be just he and I for a while as my Honey goes to her annual convention in Anaheim (from the mouse to the mouse, as she says).
Good times. Good times.
