stinking is fun

Is there anything better than watching your kid do something well? (Not arson or Amway sales, but something nice). Yes there is. I just got back from watching Ed co-host a music night at the golf club, and he was charming and funny and also played a tidy snazzy drum kit. BUT that experience, pleasant as it was, was NOT as much fun as watching him try to play the washboard.

Yup, all this has been lead in. Here's the point of today's bit. My buddy fronts a jug band (you know, I have never had occasion for that phrase until now) and, needing a percussionist for an upcoming concert, offered the gig to Ed, who went over to learn how to play the washboard and came back shaking his head in dismay.

You know what a washboard is, right? There's one there. Playing it seems pretty straightforward, simple even, but apparently not so. Ed insisted on demonstrating for me. I sat in the living room and he stood in front of me scraping and banging away, grinning wide.

"Man I am bad at this," he said. "The motion is wrong and all my stresses are wrong. I stink. But you know, I can not stop smiling. I love this thing."

He kept on for another few minutes, then went to the basement to practice some more. And I thought, how wonderful to have genuine fun doing something you are not good at. Because life is full of those things.