Dogs and Trombones

I almost titled this Dogfish Trombones. It's a take off on the name of an old Tom Waits album, from the 80s and it's up for debate whether that is old music or not since I do have a book about a trumpet player, Buddy Bolden, from the early 20th century waiting to be read by my bedside. That's old music.  Buddy apparently never recorded so unlike Tom Petty and David Cassidy he won't be making money he can't spend. I do have some money to spend and I went looking for a trombone. Later on I saw a dog. Let's see if we can put this all together. 

I think my old high school band friend Kenny, a trombone player and still a good one, made the funniest comment ever on the internet when he saw this photo of me and grandson Ezra. 

He said "like training a dog to gunfire." My instruments are all bell front so it is an edgy sound that's old school. Back in the high school days when teams did not have pro style stadiums with the fans well away from the action with bleeding noses the band marched to the sideline playing the fanfare and came to a halt right there close to  

fans in low seats. In our infantile high school desire to play long and loud we would pick out a guy sitting there ready for some football and direct our low brass gunfire right at that person. We would later say in our infantile high school way, "Did you see that guy? I got that poop all over him!" Only in our infantile high school way we did not say poop. We said another word. Face it. Tuba playing is loud as poop.    

New grandson Wallace won't be here for his gunfire training till January.   You can see here that he is getting ready for it. 

We tried our best with Cathy on guitar and Katie on uke. Some people can't stand ukes. Some gotta have 'em. Wallace tolerated it well. 

So what ended up happening is that I thought if we could buy a brass instrument we might start training early. I thought that there should be a trombone for $50-$75 in a pawn shop. I based this on the incident where I once bought a trombone at a pawn shop in downtown Lufkin. When I asked for a trombone the proprietor said "How many you want?" Think about it for a minute. If band starts in 5th grade with 20 trombone players and say all those guys and gals stick around till 12th grade so 20 players x 7 year classes of band equals 140 trombones in town at any one time. Plus my friend Kenny makes 141. If we drop the voting age to 11 that is is enough people to swing a low turn out local election like road commissioner or school board.   

So we set out on the great trombone adventure/pawn shop tour. Katie even installed an app on her phone that would notify if a trombone came up for sale at local pawn shops. I checked a couple in the immediate area to no luck and then we went down to the hipster mecca of Wicker Park on the premise there would be failing, poor hipsters pawning their axes.  Right away I noted there were no poor people in Wicker Park. Harder to tell about the failing thing. There were no trombones. After several shops I probably was primed to pay $50 over my budget so I guess it was a good thing we did not see any. 

We soon headed home on the bus. All that was wasted was an afternoon. I can remember the days when grandiose ideas were pursued for a week or until all avenues were exhausted.  Guess I am not so dedicated these anymore.. We stopped at an old bakery for a cookie. Nice place, been there a long time. 

When we came out of the bakery a guy got off the bus with a trombone. Must be the only one in town. 

Later on the flight home a guy and a gal got on the plane with a dog. 

I acted like I was taking a selfie but I got their photo. Like the dudes in the Chicago airport terminal in fatigues and machine guns I don't think I have seen this before. I was aware that folks sometimes shipped animals on planes as a piece of cargo but I guess if some folks let their dogs wear clothes and a hound can have a favorite TV show they watch from their recliner they can have a seat on a plane. 

I could only wonder if I had found that trombone what kind of trouble it would have caused to get on a plane with it. Not exactly a fit for the little baggage sizer so does it have to be a checked item? I mean what if I had got on board with it and then played a song. People have their lap tops out doing work, music is my work and I certainly need to work at playing the trombone. Probably make me be like Buddy Bolden. No one would get to hear what I played.