Music

Music
I’m so glad we caught up with a mate of mine and his wife.  They live up this way and we were due to see them but had pulled out because of the storm outbreak.  I have known the bass player for many years.  Merril and I had known the bass players wife for less time but our loss really.
She is the one who gave me stamps and said, “hold them loosely.”  When I say gave me stamps I mean thousands of them.  I put the ones I had soaked into bags of 100.  There were about 120 bags and that represented less then a sixth of the collection.  I thought putting them in country order would take months, possibly years.  My bro did it in about a month.
She sews.  Incredibly well.  She is retired now but folk come to her to get alterations and repairs for wedding dresses.
My mate plays bass.  Every occasion he gets.  When we left yesterday, he was seeing what was happening regarding a practice session he was involved in in Gympie.  The band was playing on the Sunday and having a practice session together.
In Townsville I do remember him calling me and asking “did you drop your hat?”  He would jam at the drop of a hat.  We had one of our regular good jam sessions together.  I would be on piano.
We are all getting long in the tooth now.  We do share a lot of memories.  He was the one responsible for me seeing stars.  We were overnighting at a friends place in another town.  One night whenever the lights went out for us to all sleep someone would say something and we would all be up having a big pillow fight.  It was pitch black and he got me a beauty.  I saw stars.
That trip was memorable for a number of reasons.  It was on that one we took someone who was asleep in their bed out into the front yard.  That was where they woke up the next morning. 
It was also there we had been jamming most the day and were playing one song before we drove home.  It had gone on for ages and unbeknown to us the people across the road decided to pretend to be the police and rang us.  They said there was a complaint.  We left in a big hurry because we were going to anyway.  We heard their response was “you should have seen those guys go after we called.”
Various ones have come and gone playing music with us, but the one constant has been he and I.  In the last number of years, we had a sax player join us and we absolutely love his sound,
What really pleased me was my mates wife suggested we do a trip together to Longreach.  That said heaps to me.  It shows the appreciation was not one way.  They wanted to spend time with us.
Merril will look up trips on the train out there and to Winton (to see the dinosaurs).  We are planning it for next year.   Ok we are older now.  I know that because when I need to bend down to get something I think “what else can I do while I am down here?”
Memories are both bad and good.  These ones are good.