NOTES FROM THE VAGABOND JOURNAL VANDALIA, ILLINOIS, FEBRUARY 7, 2003 - (25)

Ed's family had been

in the construction business and Ed had worked construction like the rest of his family. When the business was sold, Ed had the opportunity to work for the new owners but decided that if he was ever going to change his line of work, this was the time to do it. He opened his store. He ordered the instruments to stock the store and, when they arrived, it was like Christmas. Every instrument he took out of the box was like a present. Yet he also wondered: "What have I done?"

The Radio Shack side of the store is a small part of Ed's business; even selling instruments - mostly guitars, bass guitars, and drums - is secondary to Ed's main emphasis in the store - lessons. Every afternoon from the time school gets out til suppertime is scheduled full of lessons, Saturday all day is scheduled full, and there are other lessons fit in during the work week with adults who are learning an instrument.

Ed has had someone come in and say: "I've always wanted to learn to play guitar but I have never had the time. Now that I'm retired, I've got the time." So Ed will give the old man lessons for the man's self-enjoyment and will show the young kids how to play rock and roll. "When people get nervous about how well they play," Ed said, "I tell them it's not about how well you play but how much you enjoy playing." He has seen adults come in for a lesson tight from the stress of work, "and with only a few minutes of guitar-playing the tension goes out of them, they relax, they're really enjoying what they're doing."

Some time ago, Ed saw an advertisement for a Nashville "showcase" - he didn't know what it was all about but he put some songs on tape and wrote up a little biography, he was supposed to send his "publicity package." And he promptly forgot about it. Later he got a call from a woman who said he had been selected to showcase at such and such a club in Nashville. "They put three or four people each night in some ten clubs all around Nashville," Ed told me, "and each band or artist would get forty-five minutes or an hour to play their music. Well, I put some clothes in a bag and my guitar in the car and headed off for Nashville." As he was approaching the city, the highway bent around a hill and all of a sudden Nashville opened like a surprise before him. "Oh, my God, what have I done?" he wondered. "What am I doing here?" Yet it was a wonderful visit to Nashville. Ed got to meet a lot of other musicians, he got to sit in on their sound checks, he "got to hang around with some awfully good musicians."

"Ed, when are you going to move to Nashville?" they asked him. "I thought about it. It was really tempting. But I had responsibilities in Vandalia - a kid going off to college, one in high school, one in junior high. An ex-wife, a new husband-in-law."

"Here I was, being offered what I'd dreamed of, playing music in Nashville," Ed said, "and I decided, no, I'll accept my responsibilities. So I've stayed in Vandalia. Happiness is not about what you don't have. It's about what you have and what you do with what you have. I've played showcases on Beale Street in Memphis, and in St. Louis, as well as in Nashville, and I come back here and try to share the gift of music with people in Vandalia. Perhaps one of the people I have an effect on will go to Nashville as a result of my influence."

"I don't regret my choice to stay in Vandalia," Ed said.

To be continued....