Who's the real celebrity here?

OK. I finally have the time and motivation--a funny story to tell--to write a post. Mind you, I'm still a reluctant blogger. But here goes.

I play the pipes every night at sunset at the Newcastle Golf Course. During the past couple of years I've had the opportunity to chat a few times with a well known local TV news anchor and his young daughter. Two nights ago, while I was playing they came out to listen. I stopped and talked with them for a few minutes. Her 4th birthday was the next day (yesterday). As we talked about other things, 3 young boys, probably between the ages of 8 and 11, approached us, each with a piece of paper in their hands, and one with a pen and one of those flat folders that restaurants bring you your check in.

They asked ME for my autograph. Suprised, with an odd mixture of feeling humbled and prideful, I looked at the local TV celebrity and told the boys "you should be asking for HIS autograph!" One replied "who's he?" I said "he does the news on the TV!" We both laughed, with him saying "they don't watch the news, you're the celebrity up here."

So I asked the first kid what his name was, and what he wanted me to write (a trick I learned as a teenager when I asked Lou Reed for his autograph, and my reply, which he appropriately wrote down "I don't know.") Predictably, the youngster said "Ummmm....I don't know." Which I wrote down verbatim.

I signed the next two autographs, accidentially misspelling one of the kid's names, and they left, thrilled now to add Neil the Bagpiper's autograph to their Seahawk autographs. I finished my evening by playing "Happy Birthday" for the about-to-be-four year old.

I relate this story here, and somehow it seems much drier on the computer screen, because just about every time I play, there is some little thing like this that occurs, that for me, makes the experience of performing publicly so much richer than simply walking out, playing the bagpipe and leaving. This is one of the unexpected rewards I've found comes with doing what I love to do.