180gROC
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...until today. She cried.
I was confused at first. I wasn't trying to be particularly impressive. I was just noodling around after changing strings. I looked up, and she was all welled up.
When I was in first grade I started playing trumpet. The first couple years HAD to be hard on my parents. I remember trying to see how loud I could blow the damned thing. They only complained when I flirted with incessant. I got serious later, and played some big shows when I was still very young, but those first years... man...
I picked up electric guitar at 13. I remember my mom trying to swallow her negativity at the thought of another year or two of just starting out on a now much louder instrument. It wasn't like she was into Slayer and Exodus like I was. She suffered through it, again.
At 16 my parents broke up and both moved out of the house. I stayed behind and got emancipated. I lived in our family home by myself, had a job, went to school, and promptly moved my runaway girlfriend in. I got a gig with a band, and since I had no parents, we practiced in my living room. Kegger every Sat night, chick/chicks hanging out all the time. I was on top of the world.
But I digress. Mom walked in unexpectedly one Saturday night with 100 people in the house and backyard, a keg in the bathtub, nekkid teens in the hot tub, different drugs being consumed in different rooms, a full on quarters game playing out on her antique dining room table and me playing metal guitar with my mates in the living room. It was loud, and she was old. She knew it was a party pad, so that didn't shock her, but my guitar playing did.
Although I've always kept in touch with her, I've walked away from a lot of my family due to circumstances that arose from situations back in those days. I moved away from them all, but still see my mom every year or so. She came and visited today.
I had broken a string at practice yesterday, and had plans on stopping by and getting a pack on the way home from the train station. When we got back to the house we chatted while I changed them, going through my whole cleaning routine. When they were done and stretched I played a few of the funky "new string" riffs I play every time I change, and then started playing some blues. Nothing fancy... some minor seventh and ninth chords with some noodling and bending. Same dittys I play every string change.
I look up from it, and she is sitting on the sofa, mouth agape. Ok so the audience was captivated...
That's when it hit me. The last time she saw me with a guitar in my hands I was a greasy long haired 16 year old kid drunk and on two hits of 4 way windowpane, playing metal.
Now I'll admit my mother is an over emotional person to begin with. It only took a switch to D minor, the saddest of all keys, to get her going. Next thing I knew, I was playing, and she was a snuffled up with her eyes getting puffy.
I asked her if she was gonna be ok, and she said that all these years she wrote off my being a serious musician like when I was a kid playing trumpet, based on the last time she saw me playing so long ago. She knew I still have a tendency to listen to the same music I did when I was a kid so she assumed that's what I played. She had no idea I had studied classical guitar or been in a blues band.
So I dropped her back off at the train station tonight, with a cd of some of my stuff she could relate to (most of it is still to heavy for her). We usually argue at some point during her visit, and didn't this time probably because I blindsided her and distracted her with my Les Paul.
It was a good visit. 
I was confused at first. I wasn't trying to be particularly impressive. I was just noodling around after changing strings. I looked up, and she was all welled up.
When I was in first grade I started playing trumpet. The first couple years HAD to be hard on my parents. I remember trying to see how loud I could blow the damned thing. They only complained when I flirted with incessant. I got serious later, and played some big shows when I was still very young, but those first years... man...
I picked up electric guitar at 13. I remember my mom trying to swallow her negativity at the thought of another year or two of just starting out on a now much louder instrument. It wasn't like she was into Slayer and Exodus like I was. She suffered through it, again.
At 16 my parents broke up and both moved out of the house. I stayed behind and got emancipated. I lived in our family home by myself, had a job, went to school, and promptly moved my runaway girlfriend in. I got a gig with a band, and since I had no parents, we practiced in my living room. Kegger every Sat night, chick/chicks hanging out all the time. I was on top of the world.
But I digress. Mom walked in unexpectedly one Saturday night with 100 people in the house and backyard, a keg in the bathtub, nekkid teens in the hot tub, different drugs being consumed in different rooms, a full on quarters game playing out on her antique dining room table and me playing metal guitar with my mates in the living room. It was loud, and she was old. She knew it was a party pad, so that didn't shock her, but my guitar playing did.
Although I've always kept in touch with her, I've walked away from a lot of my family due to circumstances that arose from situations back in those days. I moved away from them all, but still see my mom every year or so. She came and visited today.
I had broken a string at practice yesterday, and had plans on stopping by and getting a pack on the way home from the train station. When we got back to the house we chatted while I changed them, going through my whole cleaning routine. When they were done and stretched I played a few of the funky "new string" riffs I play every time I change, and then started playing some blues. Nothing fancy... some minor seventh and ninth chords with some noodling and bending. Same dittys I play every string change.
I look up from it, and she is sitting on the sofa, mouth agape. Ok so the audience was captivated...
That's when it hit me. The last time she saw me with a guitar in my hands I was a greasy long haired 16 year old kid drunk and on two hits of 4 way windowpane, playing metal.
Now I'll admit my mother is an over emotional person to begin with. It only took a switch to D minor, the saddest of all keys, to get her going. Next thing I knew, I was playing, and she was a snuffled up with her eyes getting puffy.
I asked her if she was gonna be ok, and she said that all these years she wrote off my being a serious musician like when I was a kid playing trumpet, based on the last time she saw me playing so long ago. She knew I still have a tendency to listen to the same music I did when I was a kid so she assumed that's what I played. She had no idea I had studied classical guitar or been in a blues band.
So I dropped her back off at the train station tonight, with a cd of some of my stuff she could relate to (most of it is still to heavy for her). We usually argue at some point during her visit, and didn't this time probably because I blindsided her and distracted her with my Les Paul.
It was a good visit. 
that is just awesome 
I knew 2 guys up in Sacto that were in the same boat as you, and they were the go-to pads for all manner of youthful stupidity/fun! 
