Hmmmmmm....now I see that my FIRST ten 'facts' are hardly obscure, 'cause they've come up constantly in four years of posting....plus I was being a tad too serious. Well, this is fun (and much cheaper than REAL therapy) so here's some more absolutely true facts, that may be a bit more obscure.

#1. My most prized posession is none of my expensive instruments, but a postcard from Pete Seeger saying "Dear Rick, thanks for the best review I've received in all my 75 years". I'd reviewed his book "Where Have all the Flowers Gone" in the Mariposa Festival Magazine.

#2. I had chats with Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau (but never met "Maggie".

#3. I (and two others from my Local Pony League) was invited to a tryout camp in Montreal by the Chicago Cubs Organization when I was 15. I lasted 3 pitches. I was too slow, too nervous, and was one of the first kids to be sent packing. Two of the three pitches I threw were knocked over the fence by tough inner-city french Kids. I was in shock! My parents bought me a milkshake, but a very important dream ended quite abruptly.

#4. My memory has always been SO selective that I can forget very important things completely and yet can remember what kind of capo David Bromberg used in a concert thirty years ago. I've burned the bottom out of at least fifty pots and pans, by putting something on the stove and then going off to read a book (or look at Mudcat).

#5. I was a bit of a shoplifter when I was a kid. Not much...candies, magazines, small toys etc. I stopped, not because I felt it was morally wrong, but because I was terrified of being caught (obviously more terrified than Wynona). I think it was just a phase, BUT I did walk out of a Big Box store a while ago with three little screws rather than stand for 15 minutes in line.

#6. I've squeezed Crazy Glue into more than one Juke Box in bars where I was playing. It worked. In each place they had to remove the machine to fix it.

#7. I can 'dowse' for water.

#8. I can't dance and was terrified to go to parties when I was a kid. My parents made me go to dancing lessons and I STILL occasionally have nightmares about a huge older woman with an odd smell squeezing the crap out of me and (in frustration at my lack of co-ordination,) saying "ONE two three, ONE two three"! In reality, she was probably thirty, NOT huge, and perfectly nice smelling...but ohhhh boy, did that mess me up!

#9. I won't attend funerals, and ATTEMPT to avoid traditional style weddings. Don't know why (maybe) but my back starts to hurt big-time when I have to sit in Church pews for any length of time. I CAN sit in Church pews for HOURS at a music concert.

#10. The thing I miss most in life that I used to do is not baseball (I quit playing softball about seven years ago when we bought a house and I had to get more serious about my teaching), but..."Taking the overnight train to either Montreal or New York,(Friday Evening) and just walking for miles and miles in each city the next day. They're both so interesting, but I simply stopped doing it.

#11. I TELL people I'm allergic to onions....but I'm probably not. It's just easier than telling them that if I bite into one....I'll throw up right then and there! Minced onion or onion powder don't bother me....just chunks....EEEYAHHHHHH!


Cheers

Rick