While my son was entertaining one of our middle school neighbors, I sat in my room practicing my guitar and singing some songs from the big three ring binder which holds ALL songs which must be preserved. One year, I found an internet site that had lots and lots of bluegrass lyrics, and since my Dad was a master of “na, na, na, na”, I decided to make compiling a project. I printed off the site’s song title list, and he checked off the tunes that he “remembered” knowing at some point or time.I copied and enlarged and enumerated and alphabetized all of these into a songbook, which I had copied into about 15 sets. Now when I go to his house, we pull out the binder and work our way through from A (A Beautiful Life) to U (The Unclouded Day) which wipes me out completely but not him. :)

Since then, I’ve put in some other folk, alternative, rock classics which I use to practice chords (like “American Pie” for one) which aren’t too bluegrassy (E7m, Dm, A7, etc).
Anyway, because I started taking guitar lessons this week to learn how to read guitar music (I play by ear), I decided to practice up.

Soon I heard the middle school girl neighbor in the hallway listening, and she said, “Wow, that sounds really good.” We love this girl who is always welcomed in our home (she’s down in the basement now playing video games – Been here for about three hours!), and I would adopt her if I could. She’s great fun and is about the only person who is able to play with Cody for any prolonged amount of time. She’s the daughter of one of the two black families on our cul-de-sac (I’m glad our cul-de-sac is at least diverse – we have an Asian family two doors down as well.)

Anyway, I invited her to come in and sing with me, and we leafed through my songbook looking for a song that she knew. Hardly anyone under the age of 40 knows traditional bluegrass, so I flipped through these songs very quickly! Then slowly I flipped through the Beatles, Simon & Garfunkle, Lucinda Williams, Hank Williams, Pure Prairie League, John Lennon, Chuck Berry …. She thought she had heard of the Beatles, but she didn’t know for sure. Finally, we came to one we both knew, one we thought we could perform at a cul-de-sac celebration. Happily we sat on the bed together singing the only song we had in common: I’m Dreaming of a White Christmas.

Oooooh we were awesome together! We’re going to start a band together now and everything. :)