The Holidays

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Posted by bsed55 on Sunday, December 28, 2008

I spent a week at my in-laws in California last week. When my wife & I left for the airport to fly out there, it was -5 degrees F with windchills at -30. I didn't feel good about leaving (HUH?), because when the weather is that bad I just want to stay around the house. But we had people looking after house & critters, so I couldn't get out of it. But I did get to play some music with a neighbor of my mother-in-law's, a good guitar player who knew lots of songs. Who knew I could come up with a decent-sounding fiddle accompaniment to Dylan's "I Shall Be Released". My brother-in-law (his name is Thomas) tempted me with the possibility of getting to meet a musician friend of his, a guy who had played guitar with Johnny Cash for about 4 years. But he had a gig on Christmas eve, so all I have is the (incomplete) story. Well, then Thomas asked me to play some fiddle music for his gathered company. But it didn't "do much" for me because I felt like I was just background . I hate being background. But we had a nice visit with everybody, enjoyed some rare California rain (we're talking the interior of San Diego County, which averages only about 12 in./year). Mom said she's had 8 inches since just November, and we got almost another half an inch Christmas day. Then we almost didn't make our flight home because Chicago was having an ice storm. We ended up only delayed a half hour, then landed at O'Hare in pea soup fog. I didn't see ground until barely 30 sec. before we landed! I'm very happy to be home!

5 comments on “The Holidays”

John Gent Says:
Sunday, December 28, 2008 @1:08:25 PM

So the landing at O'Hare sounds like it had a pucker factor of about ... 9.2?

Rene Says:
Sunday, December 28, 2008 @3:23:00 PM

O'hairy scary O'Hare.

There's no place like home.

rastewart Says:
Sunday, December 28, 2008 @4:26:16 PM

I drove home in that same pea-soup fog. Nowhere near the white-knuckle factor of landing from the air, but I think it was the heaviest fog I've ever driven in in this area (fog was more common where I grew up). This has been a truly bizarre December weatherwise.

Cool that you got to play some music! "I Shall Be Released" was a favorite of our long-ago beer-and-music group (very much in that order), and I'm reasonably sure I squawked along on fiddle a time or two; I'm more than reasonably sure you acquitted yourself much better than I did.