Layla

What'll you do when you get lonely
And nobody's waiting by your side?

What I do is take my guitar and find a place to play—usually the platz at Neupfankirche where groups of young people tend to congregate. It usually doesn’t take long for someone to ask if they might play.

Yesterday some young boys and some younger girls I took to be their siblings were playing around the church steps. The three boys came over right away and one, urged by his mates, asked to play. He was all of 11. I handed him the guitar and he began to finger-pick a killer version of “Layla.” He really knocked me out. At his age he is already much better than I am and I told him so. His friends kept asking him to do one of his own songs but before he could, his parents called from across the platz, and the kids said a quick farewell.

Later that evening, after studying for my German exam (which I really should be doing now instead of typing this) I took a break and went down to the Irish Harp to have a beer and see who was playing. I took one of the only open seats left at a small table near the bar occupied a woman who was being entertained by an exuberant Irishman who was explaining that he and his friend were headed up the Donau canal to the Rhine with a two-masted Turkish ship they’d picked up in Istanbul for a buyer in London. “Except we had to take the masts down, don’t you know—the bridges. You can’t sail a masted ship under the bridges,” Capt Phil explained his mate Richard nodding in agreement.

The singer came on doing Irish chestnut after Irish chestnut. Phil and I sang along (I doing an Irish accent to match his) both of us sounding rather better than the gravel-voiced performer.

In between sets, the lady at the table asked if I was from England. “Nein,” I said, practicing for my upcoming German exam over directional prepositions, “Ich komme aus den USA.”
“Kentucky?” she asked and then, to my obvious astonishment, “Murray?”
She introduced herself. Maria Endres from Pfreimd. She was in Regensburg visiting her son who had sent a year at MSU as an exchange student and earned an MBA.

We spent the next couple of hours taking about Murray and Germany, about our children--her four sons and my two daughters. And of course, singing along with Capt Phil who bought the final round.

He and Richard drank up said they had to leave. We’re shoving off from the canal dock at 5 AM. Why don’t you come and see us off, he kidded.
I’ll be there, I promised. What’s the name of your ship?
“Layla,” he said. “Like the Clapton song.”

I kept my promise. I was there at 5 AM this morning to wish Capt Phil and Richard a safe trip.
The pictures are ify cause the flash didn’t function but……

Let's make the best of the situation
Before I finally go insane.