I have always liked the music of Paul Simon. I am the last of eight children born in 1965 and some of my siblings were true hippies…children of the sixties…as a result, my musical exposure was wide and varied as a child. I remember when my sister brought home Still Crazy After All These Years and played it over and over. The Anthems Bridge Over Troubled Waters and America lit fires in my young heart just like anyone else who heard them. I have always enjoyed the work and talent that is poured into everything that Paul Simon has produced over the years but I took him for granted until recently.

I have one child and she is a vibrant, beautiful, carefree girl now almost thirty. She and I rattled around this house together from the time she was twelve until she left home at the age of nineteen. The years we spent growing up together-because that’s what parents and children do, they grow up together-were filled with long conversations over dinner about school, the future, boys, and anything else that would come up but first and foremost there was always the sharing of music. When she left home I was heartbroken. She went on to go to school, find a job, find her own life, to take the training wheels off and go flying, and fly she does like a Great Tern, just riding the currents and diving in to get just what she wants when she wants it. In the years after I did many things, traveled, met women…lost women, made great friends and lost some others but there was a song that struck me some years ago. I don’t know where or how I heard it the first time but it made me stop and think about her and how important she is to me. Father and Daughter makes me smile, turn up the music, take a break for a few minutes and think of how fortunate I am to have this story of fatherhood turn out so colorful and vibrant with little mishap.

But back to Paul Simon. I work at night, mostly, watching robots and machinery…and listening to headphones…or the sounds that come out of headphones. I saw a listing for Paul Simon at the Saint Augustine Amphitheater back in maybe February and I bought four tickets. It suddenly occurred to me that I wanted to see such a master perform in person. I spent the next several months listening to various things from the artist; Paul Simon- Paul Simon is, of course, something I listen to over and over again. Graceland is some of the best traveling music I have ever listened to and one of the few albums that I will listen to from beginning to end because it sets a mood…a mood that you don’t want to end. I couldn’t tell you how many times I have pulled Graceland up on my drive from Florida to Ohio for Thanksgiving but it is one of those albums that gets me through.

On to the concert. I have never been a rowdy concertgoer. I don’t sit in the parking lot and drink until I am numb, or smoke until I reach an altered state of some kind and then go in to a music festival and sway back and forth while Neil Young jams on an electric guitar playing the same song for 55 minutes (true and uncomfortable story from Memphis). I only buy tickets to concerts that I know will be a display of true artistry…a performance. This is what we all received at the Saint Augustine Amphitheater on Thursday, June 1 2017. My girlfriend is not familiar with Mr. Simon but she was amazed and impressed with his talent and the talent of all the musicians on the stage. She kept saying that she couldn’t believe that someone who is 75 years old could play from 7:30 to well after 10 and, not just play, but perform…direct…dance…and sing like he wasn’t a day over 25. My friend kept standing up and taking videos with his phone, anticipating the next song and being pleased when he was right and standing up and swaying to the beat and I know that he loved it but I got something else.

I enjoyed the professionalism, the perfection. I listened to the man play and sing songs from Graceland, Paul Simon, Still Crazy After all These Years, Stranger to Stranger, and countless other albums…a man with 13 Grammy’s has a varied repertroire. Somewhere in the middle of it all I was struck with awe as I heard him play Wristband from Stranger to Stranger. I realized that I had heard this song debut on Prairie Home Companion in 2016 as new song from a new album…Stranger to Stranger. I realized at that moment that we were granted a special audience to true greatness. He has never stopped being creative and Stranger to Stranger is just another reason to pour another glass of wine and listen to another album and not worry about what comes after. I was truly inspired.

I am not going to design a rocket that goes to the moon. I am not going to write sonnets that live on for hundreds of years. I am not going to solve the world’s problems. I am not gifted with true inspiration and that is okay. My life is good! I have a great job, I can do the things that I want to do, most of them, but I was not gifted with the kind of gift that was bestowed upon Mr. Paul Simon. We sat in the presence of true mastery and we watched as he directed his orchestra and strutted around the stage with a surety that only comes from true genius. Sometimes, we get lucky.

Thank you Paul, for your many years of creative genius and your itchy, creative bone that won’t let you rest. I heard you say in a conversation with NPR’s Bob Boilen that you would take a few years off. I Wish you the vacation you deserve but looking at your long history, I bet you can’t help yourself. I am secretly hoping that you can’t help yourself.

In regards to my lovely daughter, I wish you a fantastic year full of interesting things and interesting people! Now go listen to Father and Daughter and remember that I am always there for you…like a postcard of a golden retriever…

-Del