Honorable fingerpain (no T)

You can't see the grooves that occupied these fingers last night, but they still sting a bit. Yesterday was our annual either too early for 2008 or just a shade late for '07 brother, sister and kids and cousins Christmas gathering. Part of the tradition is that next younger brother and I play some guitar. He is good, I am awful, but if I play real quietly no one says too much.

We played Leo Kottke's Pamela Brown
John Prine's Paradise
John Denver's Country Roads
Danny's Song

Mike played Amazing Grace.....I watched. It was beautiful. He is so good I get cold chills.

We played Coming into Los Angeles, which we used to play with the band. You would think I would remember the chords, but I had to watch his fingers and could not quite keep up.

Then there was LA Freeway...same situation with the chords. (I should really, really, really practice more, but every time I sit down with a guitar, people feel that if I have free time I should spend it talking to them rather than tuning it and learning new songs...so I have more or less given up.... whine, whine...)

It was a very happy time. There was talk of doing it more than once a year and I hope we do. He let me play his best guitar (mine stayed home as the neck isn't quite right. He plays a lot of songs with a capo....put a capo on mine and all she does is buzz). Because I was playing his best one, he played his 12-string, so his fingers were almost as bad off as mine. I have perhaps the best pair of brothers to ever be created. Dang, I love em.