The weekend started Friday night at the Black Bull. Blind Albert and I had a duo gig there, 9:30-12:30. A new guy who’s moved into the area sat in with us. Frank Sambiase moved up here from CT, I think. He’s been jamming with the local cats, paying his dues, looking to make in-roads with the locals, trying to get gigs. He did a great job with us, and I really like his playing. And, it was a treat playing with two guitar players. Rarely do I play in a band that has two guitar players; the local clubs don’t pay enough money to have bands with lots of members. Usually, I play in trios, or quartets with a horn. It was nice to have that extra voice, and it added a lot to the sound.
I got home from the gig around 1pm, maybe a little later. As I was getting ready for bed, I noticed I didn’t have my watch on. (Pay attention, this will mean more later.) At my gigs, I take my watch off, and put it in my stick bag. I don’t like to wear a watch when I play. I also take my wallet, keys, and phone out of my pants pocket, and put them in the bag. Anyway, I had left my watch in the stick bag. Since I knew I’d want to wear my watch in the morning, I went out to the car, got my bag, brought it inside, got my watch, and put it on the table.
Saturday morning, I “slept late,” and got up at 8:15. I made blueberry muffins for the family. I washed some dishes, took a shower, did the usuall Saturday AM things. It was pretty warm out, and thoughts of my scooter danced in my head. With my plastic snow shovel, I was able to get enough snow away from the garage door to get it open a crack. Once inside the garage, I was able to get a metal flat shovel. And with that, I was able to chip enough ice away to get the door open! Scoot, here I come! But first, I had to make a trip to the dump. OK, I did that, back to the scoot… I put the battery in, which had been in my garage on the battery tender. I siphoned out the stale gas that was in the tank, and replaced it with fresh gas. I jumped on the kick start a few times, with the key off, just to get some oil into the cylinder. Then I touched the electric start. She roared right to life! I let it warm for a little bit. Susan was running errands with Julia, so as soon as she got home, I went for a ride. I went down to the Keag Store, down Dublin Rd, a left onto Ash Point, South Shore Dr, downtown Owls Head, North Shore Dr, then Rt 73 to home. It was a nice ride, but the roads in Owls Head are tore up! That was a bone shaker of a ride.
After my ride, I took a quick nap. Then I headed out to Winterport for my gig that started at 8pm. I had the mushroom/swiss burger, which was delish. I brought my gear inside, and started to set up. Then, it hit me: where’s my stick bag? Yup, you guessed it. I left my sitck bag at home from the night before! Panic started to set in. No sticks! But wait! Didn’t I stash a pair of sticks in the spare tire compartment? If I did, they weren’t there. God’s provedence was with me, though. The week before last, we played a gig and had a hand percussionist sit in. I have a big bag of hand percussion items, so I brought that bag for him to borrow. I hadn’t taken it out of the car yet. Inside was a pair of sticks! They weren’t my regular size, and they were pretty beat up, but at least I had some sticks! The gig was well attended, and people danced all night long. I broke one of the sticks, but it was just the tip, so I was able to complete the gig. The sitcks went into my cymbal bag, so now I’ll have a back-up pair! When factoring in the time change, I got home a little after 3am.
Sunday was pretty typical. Church in the morning. Lunch at Mom’s. In the afternoon, I was able to take another quick scooter ride. It wasn’t as long as Saturday, as it was a little cooler. I was able to fit a 1/2 hour nap into the afternoon, too. In the evening, it was back to church. After that, I went to McDonalds for the boys supper, and to Subway for me and the girls. Chicken bacon ranch, of course! The kids went to bed, and then Susan and I had a little snuggle time on the couch before we went to bed.
