Thank you, Aunt Gay and Uncle Joe!

Aunt Gay and Uncle Joe surprised me with some tickets to see Michael Smith last night, a singer/songwriter out of Chicago, whose music I was introduced to (unknowingly) as a child due to the late great Steve Goodman. The concert was absolutely fun and magical – Smith is an amazing songwriter and as a singer, practically uses his voice as another instrument. He certainly can turn a phrase, and make your heart ache or laughter break out of your throat with equal ease.

The main reason I wanted to go is because Smith wrote one of my father’s favorite songs, The Dutchman. The first Christmas after my grandmother died, we went to Holland and Paris (a week in each, which in my opinion was not enough time in the Netherlands and five days too long in Paris). One of the days in the Netherlands we took a train up to stand on the walls of the Zuider Zee, to “go to the banks of the ocean.” Which is where we got this picture taken –

After we took the picture, we turned around and looked out over the water for a while. Behind us, a tall thin man was pushing his baby stroller, and we realized he was humming “The Dutchman”… that really just kind of made it all perfect.