On December 21st I put the finishing touches on a portrait of a musician I have never met. It is based on a photograph taken by one of the residents of the retirement community I work for, which she gave gracious permission to use as a photo source, taken by her during one of his gratis, heart-warming performances at our community. (The photographer prefers to be uncredited.) Armed with the photo and the musician’s first name and the fact that he’s based in the Quad-Cities area, I found him and his Facebook page on the Internet, and wrote him for permission to post my portrait. Then my laptop died.

The laptop is still dead. Its replacement is due to arrive in two days. Yesterday my Sweetheart, Denise, offered the use of her computer, chiefly to Facebook-post my regular column “Title Tuesday” for the poetry group Poets All Call. In doing so I found the response of the musician Eric to my portrait-posting request:

Hello Gary, Your sketch is wonderful; I’m honored. Yes you can post it in your blog thank you very much. Eric

I can’t think of a better way to kick off the New Year than by posting my portrait of this kindly and supremely talented gentleman, and urge whoever reads this to do an Internet search on Eric, the musician who plays in Sedona. I won’t deprive my readers of the thrill of the search, which will yield delightful results both on Facebook and on YouTube; but on request I’ll provide a YouTube link.

Eric, thanks for helping this New Year of mine get off to a good start!