A New Venture in My Life

A few weeks before I turned 70, on a frigid Sunday afternoon, my son, Mark and I sat in Met Life Stadium watching the hapless NY Jets play the Seattle Seahawks. Football aficionado's please don't laugh or shake your heads at me. Have pity upon me. I'm a lifelong suffering Jets fan. Side with me for a brief second... I purchased these tickets in August when the NFL, sports talk radio and the Jets fan base (myself included) were going goo-goo ga-ga and yammerin' every day over the up-n-coming Jets season and potential for winning days and glory days ahead. 

Psyche...  Not... No Way Jose...

Though the temperature was in the single digits, we did our football tailgating in moderation: lemon marinated grilled chicken, mozzarella and broccoli rabe sandwiches, a thermos of steaming hot chicken soup (Mama's homemade), a thermos of hot chocolate, a bag each of Lays potato chips and Cool Ranch Doritos, a couple of cold beers, and before we knew it, it was close to game time. 

Bundled from head to toe, we made our way into the stadium and to our seats. And wouldn't ya know it, our seats were wrapped by sunshine. We embraced the sun on our faces, and the rum, I smuggled into the stadium kept our insides toasty warm.

Midway through the game Mark turns his wool-beanie hooded head and says to me, "Pops, I gotta ask."

I thought he had a Jets question. "Sure. What's that?" I said.

"What do you want for your birthday?" 

I was taken by surprise. Not so much by the question, but more so at the timing. I gave a slight harumph before responding.

"Mark, you know me, I don't ask for anything or want anything. I'm good. Really."

"Come on, Pops. This birthday's special. You know you're going to be seventy."

"Yup. Don't remind me."

"Come on, give me an idea."

After a few moments I gave in because he would've hounded me throughout the game until I fessed up. So...

"Alright. You win. I've been wanting this for a few years now. I've done some research and it's not cheap. So as long as you include your brother and sister..."

Mark's looking at me, intently waiting for me to spill the beans.

"I want to learn to play the mandolin," I said.

"Okay. Cool. Wow, I didn't see that coming."

What seemed like a few seconds, Mark pulls up mandolins on his phone and asked me if the ones he's showing me was what I had in mind.

I responded, yes and no. There are so many styles of mandolins. If he was to consider buying one, I wanted to guide him towards my interest, the "f style".

Well, two weeks later, on my birthday (12/14) my wife, Debbie and Mark gifted me the mandolin. I was so excited. I couldn't believe they went forward and purchased one. 

I picked up the mandolin smiling ear to ear. I rested it on the thigh and started strumming. I knew the notes associated with the strings from readings I've done, but I knew nothing about mandolin chords. So I did the next best thing. I strummed a few banjo chords I could recall from when I played the four-string tenor banjo. The problem was that I played the banjo fifty-seven years ago, not last week. So I only remembered three chords. All in all, I had fun plucking away. 

What I failed to realize was the difficulty in playing this stringed instrument. It is much smaller then my banjo and even smaller then the folk guitar I have. What was I thinking? Then my endearing, love of my life reminded me...

"You know, your fingers are fatter now than they were when you played the banjo or when we got married."

"Thanks for the pep talk, sweetie."

"You're welcome."

She may have a point, though I'll not yet give her the satisfaction. I will admit to minor arthritis in my left thumb, my older fingers are a bit fatter than what my younger ones once were and ... just the age factor, though I hate like hell to accept it. 

For me, I envisioned myself playing many of the Italian songs I heard over and over growing up, ie: Volare (Nel blu dipinto di blu), O Sole Mio, Funiculi Funicula, Torneró, Come Back to Sorrento are just a few that came to mind. 

Though my new venture has been difficult to this point, I have no plans to retreat from the challenge. I'm enjoying my daily practice time and look forward to being able to put it all together and see the light at the end of the tunnel... with a complete melodic song. Who knows, maybe I'll be on "Americas Got Talent" one day.

More positivity and motivation ... A few weeks back on YouTube I stumbled on The Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain. 

The UOGB is a British musical ensemble founded in 1985 by George Hinchliffe and Kitty Lux. The orchestra features ukuleles of various sizes from soprano to bass. They are best known for performing tongue-in-cheek covers of popular songs and musical pieces from a wide variety of music genres. 

Obviously, the members of this orchestra are musicians, possibly trained musicians. I am not. But, many members are playing a ukulele significantly smaller than my mandolin. 

So there is hope for this "seventy year-old wanna be mandolin player"! Right?

Right!