"Why, Soitenly!"

As you know, I recently added a mandolin to my collection of guitars. Or at least I thought I’d added a mandolin. After more research and reading reviews of the Ovation Mandolin, I found out most musicians consider it a small guitar with a mandolin sound.

In reality, all I had to do was ask my 27-month-old grandson. When he saw it on the wall, he asked for the “little guitar” and was promptly granted his wish … which is basically my role in life these days.

I told him it was a mandolin but he insisted it was a little guitar. He also insisted that he needed some picks. Didn’t want a pick or prefer a pick … he needed picks. Multiple picks of varying colors. “I need a red one.” He knows I keep a lot of red picks around the house.

Jackson loves to put things in holes and, as you can see from this picture (with “Grinmaw,” his latest name for Janice, looking on), the first thing he did with my little guitar was to explore the sound holes with his finger.

One of the many picks I gave him (I keep a small container of picks on a table in the living room under the four instruments hanging on that wall) was a thumb pick used for my banjo. I didn’t want him putting that pick into the mandolin as it would be difficult to retrieve it, so I took it from the pile of picks and hid it in my pocket.

Jackson told me, “Grindaddy … not take picks.” I didn’t quite understand what he was saying, as he was talking into the mandolin rather than looking up at me, but Janice let me know he wanted that thumb pick back … which I promptly returned. (Again, my role in life is to grant his needs!) I hope it’s a while before the twins pick up on just how easy a pushover I am. Or do they already know? Is that something babies instinctively know about grandparents? You had almost 30 of them … were you a pushover for all of them?

Jackson never actually used the picks to strum the strings … he just kept them in a pile beside him and made sure I didn’t steal any more of them.

Life simply doesn’t get any better than grandchildren! And the twins are FAST approaching the age when they will be in the floor, each with an instrument and I’ll be standing over them awaiting my next instructions as to what they need to keep them happy.

Saturday evening, we decided we “needed” to take Jackson with us to Home Depot and possibly pick up an ice cream cone on the way home. He kept saying something about someone’s house that we didn’t understand. Finally, Janice figured out he was telling her we were going to “Depo’s house” (Home Depot).

Finally (and this really makes my heart swell with pride), I downloaded a Three Stooges application to my iPhone. I can choose one of the three (Shemp is not included) and have three pages of sound effects. I keep the default Stooge on Curly. Jackson opened up that app the other day and started tapping the icons to get the sounds of Curly and would just laugh at Curly’s sounds! His favorite app on my phone now is to go to Curly’s page and listen to my favorite (and, apparently Jackson’s) Stooge.

[Note: Two weeks ago when I was asked to fill in for our worship leader, I eagerly accepted the offer / challenge. Little did I know that last Sunday I would get sick with some crud that seems to settle on the vocal chords. Two nights ago, I got out of bed and went to the keyboard to see just how low my voice was going. Normally I can sing tenor. I was easily hitting the lowest A on the keyboard! Ever hear those people talk holding a little amplification gizmo to their throats? That's how I sound much of the time. Should be an interesting Sunday morning! Thankfully I have a good band / singers working with me ... but they don't know they will have to carry all the vocals!]