When a lot happens over a weekend, it's like four days went by. The buffer between weekdays bunched up. To sweeten the time, I'm playing harmonica in between the coming and going.

Learning. Or re-learning, you would say, my old side-gig, my personal connection to music. I write the song on the wind-pipes, the reeds. The melodies blow away. I may memorize some licks, but I'm not in the unhurried, serious stage yet. I'm in the here-and-there, once-and-then stage. Completely unserious. The hurried-fun-by-myself stage.

Give me another year.

I just returned to harmonica. Last time I spent any intensity time on the reeds was in my college days, '79, almost 50 years ago. I do want to get to the sitting-around-a-fire with someone-on-the-guitar-or-banjo and me-on-the-harp stage. That does dream appealingly.

I drove all around town to a few places, on my own mouth-harp sojourn, during this busy weekend.

I was only going to spend one night back in Anchorage, but today is the fourth day and still it's hard to get out of here. I've got paperwork to do before I go. It's my dread. If I were king for a day, I'd ban all paperwork. Today I'm not king of anything except my harmonica future. 


10:22 AM August 31, 2026

P.S. Two books arrived while I was gone (Yey!): 1) The Great Harmonica Songbook with 45 Songs for Diatonic Harmonica; and 2) 100 Legendary Songs on Harmonica for Beginners, No Bends or Complicated Tricks. (I'll be cheating.)

An exercise for those who want to keep their brain firing on all its synapses is to play and learn an instrument, even one as simple as an harmonica.