It was 40 years ago but I will never forget. I met and had a brief friendship with Valentino, top of the line accordion performer. Could pick and choose whatever job he wanted.

One day he confided in me. He was going to take six months off from performing and work on getting even better. He didn't care about the loss of income. He was determined to be even better than what he was.

Sure enough...he paid his six months dues, and, sure enough...he was back and better than he ever was.

I'm no Valentino, but I'm thinking about doing the same thing with this extra time we're going to have now. Two major projects are to make an all out effort to learn my PA3x through and through and....practice the Jerry Lee Lewis/boogie riffs until "muscle memory" finally takes over.

Realistically speaking, this is the "Last Hurrah" for me. I won't get this chance to focus like this again without any distractions.

I figure even if there's no work like before, I'm going to make MYSELF happy through "expression." Play and hear songs on the arranger the way I have them arranged in my head. And the boogie fingering...just plain let all that energy inside you out. Even the simplest boogie pattern says something.

We're the luckiest people on the planet. We can walk over to that keyboard and forget EVERYTHING going on in the outside world. It took the present situation to make me realize that!