Does This Make Me A Stalker?

Last night, I posted Seven Months and Seven Wonders.

I was tired, had a million and one  things on my mind, my ankles were killing me, I was putting new strings on the guitars for tonight and was a prisoner in my own home as parts of it were  being used to shoot a movie, but that’s another story.

I published the post and as  always, I sent it out on Twitter.   Within three minutes, the tweet was favorited by none other than Steve himself.

In the “Seven Months” post, I make reference to the fact that I will soon turn 55. I was 18 and remember exactly where I was and who I was with when I first heard the opening notes of “Big City Cat” and I suppose I was 20 when I saw him play for the first time.

Many moons have passed and many stories have been recorded since then.

Elissa, Steve and me, after the show.

A few months ago, I took one of our daughters to see Steve play in Charlotte. After the show, Steve came out to the table where his CD’s and “stuff” were being sold. I waited until the crowd had thinned and  went over with Elissa and talked with Steve.  I looked at the table of wares and mentioned to him, “I would buy something, but I have all these”.  He picked up one CD and said, “I bet you don’t have this?”.  I looked at the cover, wasn’t sure, but agreed to buy it.  Steve signed it and had I been thinking clearly, I should have asked him to sign it to Elissa, but I did not. ( I did talk to her about that the next day and apologized for not doing so)

As we parted ways, Steve stopped, turned around, looked me in the eye and said  something like “Thank you, Ray. See you next time”  I think he realized what our being there meant to me.

A couple days later, I went to load the CD into my iTunes and guess what?…already had it. I think I have them all.  

What is it about “Middle Age” that makes things like this so important to us?   One of my buddies, Doug, blogged about a similar, recent experience here: A Wonderful Time Was Had by All.

With all the problems and pain caused by technology, there is a very positive side to it all.

We have the means to reach out, in real time,  and tell others how much we appreciate them and they can shake our hands and say thank you from a thousand miles away.

And how cool is that?