The TVPI, before his departure for the Great (Not Quite) White North of Canada, had written out for his Old Dog Dad a guitar Tablature for Old Dog Dummies. It’s a blues riff. You know it. Everybody knows it. (I think Dave called it “A Blues Riff”.) It was one he enjoyed learning. It made him feel, at 14, like he was actually playing guitar, and he went on to improvise from it and generally make punkadelic mayhem.

I’ve been messing about with it some, but hadn’t quite figured out the rhythm of the resolution part that was supposed to take me back to the beginning of the thing. Tonight, I decided I wouldn’t do anything else until I did. And hey presto! I did!

Now listen. I have, up ‘til now, refused even to play for Calvin Junior and his stuffed and furry friends at night-night. (Point of order: Junior is my fourth six-year-old son. So where’s my Order of Canada?! Where’s my Presidential Medal of Freedom?) But tonight, I ran upstairs, dragged EcoWoman out of the bath, propped her up in an attentive and generally approving posture, and played A Blues Riff. Twice! It was, ah, humilerating. (Exhiliating?) Embarrassed pleasure, rueful excitement. Mid-life learning is a confusing business.