If I only had my own bus

I've always wanted to be a rock star. O.K. not the kind of rock star from the 80's like Iron Maiden or Twisted Sister, wearing the tight leather pants and face paint, but the kind of star who gets to have someone open for them... and has a bus and roadies.

When I started taking guitar lessons, I was in grade three and eight years old. I thought I was on my way. After a couple of years of lessons, my brother Randy said to me that he thought I would one day be on stage. That made me feel great. My buddies Warren and Brad would often come over and we would jam with our classical guitars, but we wouldn't play the songs we were supposed to be practicing. Instead we would play AC/DC, Led Zeppelin, and Winnepeg's own Harlequin (remember "Innocence"?). We wanted to one day be on stage and have a bus...and roadies...and naked chicks.

One day, while Warren, Brad and I were jamming in my bedroom with the door closed, my dad walked in and said, obviously annoyed, in Low German, "Daut heeat zich frecht" which I took to mean, "That sounds stupid." We quit playing and his words have been burned into my memory ever since. I have always wished for an apology.

To this very day, when I listen to beautiful guitar playing, I imagine myself on a stage and it is me being the one presenting the well thought out progression of chords, notes, and lyric to the receptive audience. I have written several songs and have yet to formalize them and send them off to someone who would care to listen. I imagine the person on the other end listening and thinking to themselves that they need to get me on the phone...I need to meet this guy, he sounds great.

I have worked on my playing style for thirty years and have recently become more proficient in a finger picking style I've been trying to grasp for a very long time. Bruce Cockburn has always been an inspiration to me, both as a guitar player and as an international thinker. I've been to several of his concerts and very closely watched his fingers, made some notes in the dark, and stayed up late afterwards testing my memory. If I was on stage, I would want an audience member like me...taking notes and shaking my head in wonder.

As it is, I do have my own audience. I have had my campers when I was a counsellor at summer camp and the night was hot and no one could sleep. I pretended I was on stage without a spotlight, playing my classical songs that Ben Kehler taught me during those five years of lessons, lulling those hot campers to sleep. I had my fellow tree planters in Northern B.C. where, with borrowed guitar I played a few familiar tunes to make the bugs seem less buggy. I convinced my wife to sing a song with me as I played during our wedding ceremony. We were each other's audience besides the 250 guests. My students can't get enough of my playing and daily yell, "Sing about me...sing about me" as I pick up my guitar yet again and sing "Dog Bones" or a comforting tune I know from my youth, "Land of the Silver Birch".

At home, where I am needed the most, is my best audience. I'm not on a grand stage with a bus and the clapping people taking notes. I can't imagine a better audience where my only applause is the deep slow breathing of a sleeping child. This hasn't happen often, but once is better than a lifetime of unrealized dreaming.