The Best Birthday Present.

Photo courtesy of Howard Mathies

The best birthday present I ever heard of, or witnessed, happened on August fourth, 2023. Heidi, the wife of a high school friend,

Bob, texted me with a save the date note about this friends surprise birthday party. He’s not the guy in the picture above, although he is quite special himself.

The person for whom the party was planned, is a life long musician. He and I started singing together in high school chorus. We were in a rock and roll cover band in high school along with the guy in the picture above and a lead guitar player. We all did vocals and because I had training in singing, I was, and still am a good singer. But I was an atrocious bass player. No training, no vision, I stunk on ice, as I like to say. That’s in spite of the fact, I had been taking lessons and performing one way or another, since I was eight years old. I just stunk on bass. If it wasn’t oom pah music, easy back and forth, it was beyond me.

So the incredibly wonderful idea behind this surprise 70th birthday party was that Heidi would book the current band that my friend Bob was in, and have them play a birthday party. He just didn’t know it was for his birthday. The surprise played out during their first set, when other members from the previous ten bands he had played in started filtering in to the ballroom. His wife had invited everyone he had ever performed with, and here he was on stage playing when most of his past band mates just appeared in the crowd. Talk about freaking a guy out!

The two guys in the picture above are myself on the right, and Rees Candee, a filmmaker and harmonica player that was in Bobs very first band with me, although he played drums then. When Bobs wife Heidi messaged me about the party, it sounded like former members might sit in with the band playing that night. As much as I hated the thought of performing again, I didn’t want to be a dick and act as if it was beneath me. But I was scared to death that I would once again stink up the place with my playing, so I decided to come prepared.

Over about six months leading up to the party I took my first ever bass lessons. I had a lot of fun playing again, and in spite of myself, got quite a bit better. Truthfully, much better than I had ever been in the past 50 years. Just like every other avenue of my life, once I got a direction to go, and some help along the way, I was becoming proficient and having fun.

During the party, I was able to sit down with Rees and catch up. We had not seen each other since high school. When you sit down with this guy, it’s like you are the only person in the room that matters. He is totally focused on you. It honestly didn’t occur to me until a week later, of course he is like this. He’s an award winning videographer. He pulls your story out of you and makes you the shining star of your own life. Just the way you always knew you could shine, given the chance.

We weren’t supposed to bring presents, but I brought a Pink Floyd t-shirt for Bob, and Rees brought something unbelievable. Rees had saved, for 54 years, an original set list of the songs we played at our gigs. Including notes taken by Rees about the individual songs and tempos, endings, and other things to remember on stage.

I have got to say that the idea behind the surprise party was genius. Heidi is a lifelong music teacher and mom. And by all measure a wonderful wife. If you want to see Bob perform, you’ll have to come to Wisconsin. If you want to hear Rees sitting in with some of the best bands in Arizona, you’ll have to go to Phoenix. To see me perform, you only have to come to Substack.

There are a number of reasons why I never cared enough to stay performing through the decades. Meeting Mark Lindsey, the lead singer for Paul Revere and the Raiders, sometime in the 2000s at a house party in Florida, just solidified those reasons. This is a man, just ten years older than me, that had been playing steadily in clubs for the past thirty years. Don’t believe any picture you see of him. When I saw him that night, performing with a backing band, the spot light was not kind at all. You could see every mile he had traveled etched on his face. As you can probably surmise from the above photo, I’m not very concerned about my appearance, but I could not reconcile what the road had done to his boyish face.

What I like, is to not stand holding a heavy bass guitar, sweating through a shirt every hour. Besides, sleeping with the bass player is not even on the list of most groupies.

What I like, is to sit somewhere quiet, without people around, and poke at my I-Pad, till the words come out right.

If you liked this story, pass it on to someone you like. Oh, and tell them “He finally wrote one where he’s not whining”.