" Mistakes Were Made" review or family checklist?

Mistakes Were Made, Bill Harley Live ( with adults)

The afternoon was quiet. The rain passed by and the sun was out and the orange and yellow leaves falling. I was settling a summer long office move into new quarters. The new office arrangement includes a CD player. My family left for a afternoon of work and I settled down to do a little work in my office. I slid a CD in the player and settled back at the computer, but I couldn't work. Bill Harley's voice was coming from the speaker, the familiar strum of his guitar the inflection and the dissolving to laughter.

So this might take awhile, I decide and relax to listen. The first super hero to streak by sounds like Bill Harley but the image in my mind is a small cowboy. Boots clicking on floor and plastic spurs spinning. Soon a Sailboat comes into view and I wonder how these guys can all be cut from the same cloth, as out in my backyard there is a boat. A big old Criss Craft my son brought home. It was an abandoned boat, homeless and hungry. He told me" anything free is worth saving up for" and the boat slid into our possession. The dreams of cruising the lakes, windblown hair, girls in bathing suits and a bunch of guys who saved a boat and made it whole. Or at least patched the hole! Summer of 17, the stuff of dreams and ballads.

Then comes a trio written right from the combat zone of teaching and raising teenagers. The masterful handling of life's toughest questions and the commentary ,uh-huh, yep, sure, anytime, whenever, no problem, and a duo departing saying what was that all about. Could be there, could be here ,of course Bill has taken a moment in life that is as common as a sixteen year old and made it into a masterpiece.

My next flashback is to 1963. My parents had just become the proud owners of a 1751 colonial. It was straight from the movie Money Pit with sagging, leaning gaping, rotting structures. From the large hole in the wall where a stove pipe had been thrust comes an intruder, a bat. I remember sitting on the edge of a bathtub, my mother frantically stuffing towels under the gap at the bottom of the door. It was both a little entertaining and a little scary, at 5 my judgement weighing the mix of delight and fear. The sounds of her shrieks, and the crashes as my Dad, corn broom in hand rode herd on the solitary invader. Once again the magic that is a Bill Harley works in the blur of moment, in the strum of a guitar, I am swept into memories so distant and clear.

Thanks Bill and if you don't mind I've shut off the player as the last notes of Sweet New England fade and now I will get some work done...... but I'm smiling and happy and wishing I had been there Live ( with adults)! http://www.billharley.com/ 2002 Round River Records