We're having a tribute concert for HankB this Sunday, starting at 3:00. Various acts and bands will perform and two jam sessions will be included. It will be held at the Cross Lake American Legion in Shreveport, the site of the 20009 Arranger Jam.
All proceeds will go to his widow, Linda.
Anyone wanting to participate, please email me for details.
Thanks,
DonM

Don ... you got mail ...
thnx,
t.


[This message has been edited by tony mads usa (edited 02-28-2010).]

Good luck with the concert - what a great idea. Its too far for me to drive sadly.

There was a huge turnout. Maybe 10 bands played and many other artists sat in and/or sung. I didn't play and neither did Joe Lee or Bill P. We did enjoy the many talented performers though. There are a lot of good pickers around here.
I don't know how much money was raised but I'm guessing several thousand dollars.
DonM

That's just great, Don ... Good things happen when friends in the music community get together ...
t.

I'm glad it turned out well. Sadly, I've been to altogether too many of these things in the last two or three years. And most of them young guys (even younger than me!) with their whole lives ahead of them. Played at quite a few, too (most, really). It's a tough gig, I can tell you...

Life is precious. Enjoy it ALL, the good and the bad, because the alternative takes that decision from you. When things seem down, make music your tool to rise back up. It has the power...

Thanks guys. It's true, a lot of my friends are dying also.
Thought I was going to die myself last night and today. I contracted a severe stomach virus or something. Now my wife has it too.
Good news is I've probably lost 15 pounds in 24 hours.
This is the third night of work I've missed in the past 30 years or so.
I would have tried to go in but the boss said stay home. Bill offered to sub for me, since he could have played my Audya.
Anyway I'm sure glad I stayed home because I can't stay out of the bathroom for more than a few minutes at a time.
Gotta run. Pun intended.
DonM

Sorry to hear it, Don. Had some health issues myself the last month or so. One visit to the emergency room, one thing dealt with by myself, because my doctor was too interested in his tee time to see me (or so it seemed!).

If doctors can treat us like customers, why can't we treat them like cheap shoddy salesmen?

I've been loyal to the same doctor and clinic for over twenty years, but the last five or so, I am treated like a cow in an abattoir... waiting for the worst to happen with all the other cows.

It didn't USED to be like this. That's why change has GOT to come. If they could make a living treating us as humans in the past, they can do it now...

I've been fortunate to have really good doctors who honor their appointments and seem to be very caring.
A few years ago, I dropped a skin specialist who always kept me, and everyone else, waiting from one to two hours. She wanted to know why I wasn't making another appointment and I told her. Didn't bother her a bit.
Now I can count on my skin guy seeing me within minutes of my appointment. Once he was about five minutes late and he apologized profusely.
DonM

Don,
Glad it worked out. I would have participated if it was closer to me.

Meanwhile, I agree...enjoy life and especially your family and friends...life can be short.

Lee S.

Don, I agree. If we were allowed to shop around by our health insurance companies the way the auto insurance companies let us shop around for cars, the doctors would be MUCH more of a 'service' industry rather than them thinking that we serve THEM...

Imagine the outrage if your car insurance company FORCED you to go to the dealers they personally picked, and imagine what those sharks would do to us once they had us over a barrel.

Capitalism is a great system, if competition is allowed to be fair, but when certain industries get a monopoly on something we CAN'T live without, it's no different to how communism, if practiced like the theory says it should have SUPPOSED to have been, would have been a fair system too. Trouble is, theory and reality are two totally different things...

And the powerful prey on the weak in both systems...

Don,

Glad the benefit went well, and as I said on another forum, I wish I could have been there.

As for the health issues, keep in mind that after spending 15 years working in the health industry at three leading hospitals, from my perspective about 1 percent of the physicians and surgeons I worked with were excellent. The other 99 percent didn't have a lick of common sense. and some, even if I were dying, I wouldn't let get withing same zip code of me. They were damned well dangerous when it came to the practice of medicine.

Over the years I've fired several doctors. The way I looked at it they worked for me when I was the patient. I paid them--they were supposed to do a specific job, do it well, perform the duty at a predetermined time and charge a reasonable fee. If they couldn't meet those demands, I found someone that could. Sometimes you have to do a lot of shopping to find a good product, including a good doctor. The unfortunate thing about doctors is that very few individuals know how good, or bad, their doctor is. I'm very fortunate in that during those man years spent in the operating room I got to see what they can, or cannot do, and from that I got a pretty good education about the practice of medicine. Most of the surgeons and physicians I see at this point in life are those that treat other physicians and surgeons.

Get well soon old friend,

Gary