My writing has stalled. \u00a0The last few weeks, I’ve been busier with band than I’ve been since High School. \u00a0We put on a successful Pancake Breakfast with Santa this weekend, and the concert band had an outstanding concert at the church where we’ve been practicing. \u00a0We’ve had some great successes, and my time has been well spent.<\/p>\n
But the event that made it all worth it took place last night, at the Camden Springs retirement home in Elk Grove.<\/p>\n
Normally, RC Swing practices on Tuesday nights, but last night, we went to Camden Springs and performed. \u00a0We set up in a foyer, cramped together tighter than normal. \u00a0We kept the tiled area in front of us clear, in case the residents wanted to dance. \u00a0On the other side of the small dance floor sat several sofas in a semi circle. \u00a0A balcony stood above us, allowing more residents to look down and listen to us play.<\/p>\n
As we set up our equipment, people came to watch, eager for our performance. \u00a0One man approached me. \u00a0He used a walker, and his hands were painfully twisted with arthritis. \u00a0He told me he played bass. \u00a0I\u00a0knew that our bass player was going to be late, so I invited him to join us, without really giving it much thought.<\/p>\n
His name was Ed, and he did great! \u00a0When Geno, our regular\u00a0bass player arrived in the middle of the first set, Geno took a seat and enjoyed the show. \u00a0Ed wound up playing both sets\u00a0with us, and had a blast doing it.<\/p>\n
He wasn’t the only one that enjoyed the show. \u00a0People told us, with tears in their eyes, how the music we played took them back. \u00a0One man talked to me after the performance about his time playing coronet with the British Army. \u00a0Another woman told us how it was a perfect end to her 81st birthday.<\/p>\n
This is why we play music. \u00a0To touch lives, and make people happy for a little while.<\/p>\n
My hope is that someday, my writing will touch people’s lives the way my music did Tuesday evening. \u00a0Even if it’s just one person, like Ed on the bass. \u00a0It’s that kind of joy that makes all the difference in the world.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
My writing has stalled. \u00a0The last few weeks, I’ve been busier with band than I’ve been since High School. \u00a0We put on a successful Pancake Breakfast with Santa this weekend, and the concert band had an outstanding concert at the church where we’ve been practicing. \u00a0We’ve had some great successes, and my time has been […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-759","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/briancebuhl.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/759","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/briancebuhl.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/briancebuhl.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/briancebuhl.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/briancebuhl.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=759"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/briancebuhl.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/759\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":760,"href":"https:\/\/briancebuhl.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/759\/revisions\/760"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/briancebuhl.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=759"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/briancebuhl.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=759"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/briancebuhl.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=759"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}