Poor Uncle Dave, my sympathy goes out to you. Music is dead. Must be awful to live in that kind of an area with that kind of an attitude. Kind of reminds me of the story of the immigrant who migrated to this country during the depression years. He opened a little hot-dog stand on the corner. He took this plain old weenier and gave it a home in a plain old bun. Looking at it he thought, who is going to buy this homely looking thing? So he took the pale red dog and gave it a squirt of yellow mustered, alongside the mustered a bright red strip of catsup. Looking better he mused. Strips of yellow and red, let’s add some circles of green. Pickles, that’s it. And now a blanket of sauerkraut, everybody in my old country liked sauerkraut. Top it off with some nice juicy red tomatoes and let’s see. People seen. People liked. People bought. What a business. Every year was better and better. He sent his son off to collage. His son came back and said: Papa, things are bad, we are in a depression, business is down, people are being laid off. Do you think you should be adding to the house? I don’t know if it’s wise to be expanding your business. Things don’t look too good. Poor papa. He sold his new stores, cut down on the hot dog trimmings and went down hill. I think if your crowd dies or stops coming out at night you have talked yourself into it. Around here schools have great sport programs, that’s true. But! But they all have super music programs. These schools have jazz bands that scare me. Grade school and high school! When I was a kid, grade schools had no band whatsoever. High school had a marching band and that was all. The arts? Grade schools and high schools both have great drama programs. They give public productions of theater that almost rivals the pro’s. Frankly Dave I hate to see you get off into such a negative state of mind. Many of the unions in this area have shot themselves in the foot over the years. So what! Like the immigrant, if you base your life on what others are doing your going nowhere. If you stagnate, your crowd will die off and that will be that. Some of the guys in my old band have done that and dried up in the process. Come-on Dave, be your old up tempo self and give us something to live for. Just for the heck of it, what kind of cars do you think you will be selling?

Grandpa Doug