Rainy day activity / Vs. the String Witch.

A few months ago, someone suggested I start one of these to record my busking and performing adventures.

I'm not convinced that I have many days that would count as adventures in most reader's minds. However, I've had a sore throat all week, and it's a wet day out, and so.

Many years ago, I was busking in the underground concourse in Philadelphia - specifically, in a glass tunnel adjacent to a broad, columned gallery that led to the trains to New Jersey. The acoustics were stunning, and the spot had long been the main venue of a blind woman with a seeing eye dog, who played fingerstyle guitar and sold cassettes. She and I had had a few unfriendly encounters .

She was nowhere to be seen when I scouted the place, so I opened my case, tuned up and set to. I was really enjoying the natural reverb of the spot.

This would have been the early eighties, so I would have likely been wearing a black leather jacket and steel toed engineer boots, black jeans and t-shirt, and a belt with a skull buckle. My guitar would have either been a cheap plywood dreadnought or the Martin D - 18 I aquired during that period. Hair - probably quite shaggy.

Anyway, after just a little while, she showed up and demanded that I vacate her spot. I informed her that there was no plaque with her name on it, and that I had gotten there first. She blustered a bit and withdrew. To a spot a short distance away, where she and her dog - just waited. Within sight.

I broke a string. Always prepared with spares, I changed it. And immediately broke the spare. Which I replaced with a string of close dimensions. Which also - instantly - broke.

I had enough money in my case to buy strings. I never played that spot again, and I kept well clear of that surly blind busker.