A Cry Out of the Darkness

Well, here I am with my annual, well almost annual blog post. It seems like I’ve given myself enough of a vacation from writing, almost two years, so that I could return to it again. It’s not that I don’t write. I still correspond with friends, and then I write a kind of diary, putting together my thoughts and organizing them as well as I can. I have never tried to post anything like that on the blog though. I doubt if anyone would be interested. The only people who can do that are famous people. If someone is famous, if they’ve accomplished something, people are naturally interested in what’s special about them. There's nothing special about me, so maybe I should continue to keep my thoughts to myself. 

Since my retirement, I've worked really hard to improve my violin playing, and I think I have improved, now that I have more time to practice. I’ve developed a repertoire of old melodies,  familiar to my audience, 70 to 90 year olds, whom I entertain at nursing homes and hospice facilities. What I've learned over the years about performing is that people want to participate. They want to tap their feet. They want to hear something that reminds them of their youth, their first love. They like for you to tell them a little about yourself, about the tune you're playing. Sometimes I think they enjoy the story as much as the music

That’s what I got from my historical writing. I got involved in the stories, and hopefully so did my readers. As I get older and think about what to do with the rest of my life, I really want to keep entertaining people, with my violin and with stories. I have plenty of music, and plenty of stories, stories about my adventures, family stories I couldn’t include in my book, stories about people I admire, people that interest me. I hope you will enjoy them.