{"id":111359,"date":"2023-03-30T09:26:49","date_gmt":"2023-03-30T13:26:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/summerofjim.com\/?p=111359"},"modified":"2023-08-13T05:22:14","modified_gmt":"2023-08-13T09:22:14","slug":"voices-from-the-jacuzzi","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/summerofjim.com\/?p=111359","title":{"rendered":"Voices From the Jacuzzi"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

My semi-retired status * <\/strong>permits me the opportunity to supplement my 6:00am swim with some additional treadmill time at the Riverwalk Athletic Club, located at the Heritage Hotel in Southbury, CT. I go back  at 11:00ish and will watch a movie: walk at a slow pace, covering 5 to 7 miles depending on film length. OR, listen to music: walk at a fast clip while listening to my playlist of curated fast tracks, covering 4 to 5 miles. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Either way, after my stroll I treat myself to 10 minutes in the hot tub, with my tender right knee positioned directly in front of one of the Jacuzzi jets. Given the time of the day, more often than not, I have the tub to myself, and enjoy pleasant solitude with only the bubbling water to break the quiet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And then there are times when someone else steps into my semi-private<\/em> domain.  And on the occasion that I am about to relate, that someone else<\/em> was a house guest to the hotel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Someone else: \u201cDo you play the banjo?\u00a0 I\u2019m on my way up to New Hampshire to play at some country\/bluegrass thing. I\u2019ve been playin\u2019 the banjo forever. Just makes me happy.\u00a0 An’ I know an’ play all the great ones like\u00a0Foggy Mountain Breakdown<\/em>\u00a0an’\u00a0Doggy\u00a0 Salt<\/em>\u00a0an’\u00a0Cotton Eyed Joe<\/em>\u00a0an’ o\u2019course\u00a0Dueling Banjos<\/em>.\u00a0 Everyone loves that one!\u00a0 It\u2019s from the movie\u00a0“Deliverance”.\u00a0It\u2019s an interesting movie, but there\u2019s a scene in it when this guy gets raped by some ugly-looking backwoods guy.\u00a0 That\u2019s pretty grim to watch.\u00a0 \u00a0That backwoods guy sorta looks like my second cousin Nestor. I like watching the film but once the banjo part is over I shut it off. I play lotsa other stuff, too.\u00a0 Like I learnt how to play a thing called Brandenburg Number 5 by Bach.\u00a0 Not the whole thing, mind.\u00a0 Just the part they call the\u00a0cadenza.\u00a0\u00a0<\/em>An’ then one time I was playing at this thing they call a Bar Mitzvah.\u00a0 It\u2019s a Jewish thing, ya know. I guess it\u2019s a special birthday thing for a boy.\u00a0 An’ early on in the party all the folks form a circle an’ dance a thing called the\u00a0whore-ah<\/em>; an’ I learnt how to play their song called\u00a0have-a-neg-eelah.\u00a0<\/em>All the family dances in this big circle an’ then they put the boy on a chair in the middle of the circle, an’ a couple of the older relations hoist him up high an’ everyone continues to dance around havin\u2019 a good time!\u00a0 After that they asked me to play\u00a0Dueling Banjos<\/em>\u00a0which I did.\u00a0 But I didn\u2019t tell them the part about the guy getting\u2019 raped in the woods.\u00a0 Ya know that circle dance they did?\u00a0 Well, I was watchin\u2019 cable one night an’ they had this documentary thing on Indians.\u00a0 An’ the Indians were dancing around in a circle in front of their teepees just like they did at the Bar Mitzvah thing.\u00a0 \u2018Cept they didn\u2019t put anyone in a chair an’ put \u2018im in the circle. Ya know, I don\u2019t care what people say, but they put alotta good stuff on cable.\u00a0 One night I caught a thing on cable on the Civil War an’ there was this sad song that played in the background, [sings] two brothers on their way, two brothers on their way, two brothers on their way, one wore blue and one wore gray, one wore blue and one wore gray, as they marched along their way, fife and drum began to play, all on a beautiful morning<\/em>\u2026 it\u2019s a sad song isn\u2019t it? [continues to sing]\u00a0one was gentle, one was kind, one was gentle, one was kind, one was gentle, one was kind, one came back, one stayed behind;\u00a0 cannonball don’t pay no mind;\u00a0 if you’re gentle or if you’re kind; it don’t think of the folks behind; or of a beautiful morning.<\/em>\u00a0 It\u2019s a sad song an’ I don\u2019t play it too much. I like to play other things because the banjo makes me happy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNo.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhat?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI don\u2019t play the banjo.\u201d

*<\/strong>I wanted to be full-on<\/em> retired but the opportunity to lead wine tastings for my friend and former Grapes\u2019 colleague Dave Fieber, who opened a specialty wine shop in New Canaan, was a deal that proved impossible to refuse.<\/em> Four times a month, I do what I love to do (communicate what I love about wine) AND <\/em>fund my birthday vacation to Walt Disney World. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

My semi-retired status * permits me the opportunity to supplement my 6:00am swim with some additional treadmill time at the Riverwalk Athletic Club, located at the Heritage Hotel in Southbury, CT. I go back  at 11:00ish and will watch a movie: walk … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-111359","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-stories-brief-tales"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/summerofjim.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/111359","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/summerofjim.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/summerofjim.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/summerofjim.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/summerofjim.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=111359"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"http:\/\/summerofjim.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/111359\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":111408,"href":"http:\/\/summerofjim.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/111359\/revisions\/111408"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/summerofjim.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=111359"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/summerofjim.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=111359"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/summerofjim.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=111359"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}