Aaron's Musical Journey, part two my early twenties.

    My twenties. How I got back to music is kind of a funny and kind of a sad story. So me and the guys I was hanging out with were at this one guys house. We had cocaine and we were excited. Well 3 pretty girls came knocking on the door. Which usually meant good things. Usually! This time the house owner was like SHHH,SHHH ,SHHH! "What" as someone was going to answer the door. " I don’t want them to hear us I don’t want to share" the owner of the cocaine confessed. What? you don’t want to share cocaine with the pretty girls so us guys can sit in here alone. This event caused me to really contemplate my life and I knew I had to make a change. I sat quietly which is something I have always done when facing decisions. Asked what I was supposed to do and this nagging desire to play music is what came to mind.
    My first ventures into playing the guitar again were with the Blues. I really had them so i felt right at home and listening to Robert Johnson made the blues go away. I had a great drinking buddy Efren and we made our blues home on the porch. Sometimes we played for many sometimes we played for a few but one thing we did was we played and played, and drank a little too. So we decided to name our group Liquid Bread. I will always cherish the times when Liquid Bread was the duo. It was the darkest richest chocolate you could ever imagine. One day we woke up and it was no longer a blues band we were doing covers of Cream and other 60’s and 70’s bands over original music and had a hard rock line up 2 guitars, bass, drums. At the intermission of a gig one night I climbed into the driver's seat of my 1963 Ford Galaxie and cried as I wanted to make original music and thought we had good originals, and the group of guys I was hanging out with in the band were never going to go for it.
So I decided I am going to get my life together and go back to school, stop screwing around with the band thing. I could do the solo thing and be fine I just needed to make myself the best I could and to me that meant getting a music education. I signed up at the local University and was very excited to start learning everything I possibly could about music. . I signed up to take guitar because that was the instrument I played and wanted to become the best guitarist I possibly could. I played a recital in my first semester and the piece I played was this song Romance. I played l to great success and was so pleased with myself I got cocky. The next recital I was going to play prelude in D minor by JS Bach. I practiced that piece over and over and over again, continuously making the same mistake and not fixing it in around the 12th measure, I would continue with the piece but never addressed the 12th measure. I had no idea what I was setting myself up for. . This was the piece that taught me we practice our mistakes if we are not careful with our music practice. I practiced several mistakes into the piece I went to play the piece and it unraveled in a way that will never happen to me again. It was horrible. When I left the school I threw my foot stool almost all the way home kicking it and being really upset. I took guitar lessons for  1 more semester was not happy with where they were going and switched over to upright bass. I enjoyed my year on the bass but after the year I knew I had to find the right guitar teacher. My fear of leaving my home town was holding me back. After much research and contemplation between Colorado and California for school. I decided I was going to Colorado.
  At this point in time things get crazy for my memories because not only was I going to school, the most interesting and beautiful woman entered into my life. Paula Manning-Lewis who at that point was a recently divorced Paula Beck who in the Summer of 95 told me she would never talk to me again and then in October of 95 she moved in to my house with her awesome 3 sons. It was October when she moved in and it was January when I told her "I am transferring schools, I am going to go to school in Colorado. Would you like to go with me?" To my amazement she said yes. 
    So in typical Aaron and Paula planning we sold the mobile home we were living in and moved to Colorado in June never visited just loaded up a moving van with 3 kids, a dog, and our belongings and moved to Greeley, Co, cause they had the Jazz school and I was going to be a famous blues guitarist. So we get to Greeley, pull into the KOA pay our lot rent. Our lot is right next to the playground so we ask the kids to go play on the playground while we get camp set up. 2 minutes later the guy from the front desk comes out and says I have to be in the playground with the kids. Mind you I am 6 feet away from them with a 3 foot high fence between us. And one more thing you need to stop your dog from barking. So I stood up from setting up the tent said Kid’s can’t play and dog’s can’t bark here I think we need a refund and we left Greeley. We drove to FT. Collins and stayed in a Motel 6 found a storage unit unloaded and returned the truck cause we were going to get an apartment the next day. Well 3 weeks later at the KOA tent destroyed from the dog freaking out at lightning storms during monsoon season, sunburned wife and kids, the giant savings $3000 dwindling and I was counting nails at Home Depots across Colorado for pennies for the work I did,  I called my mom and dad and asked if we could come back home and stay with them. The owner of the KOA overheard the conversation and offered us a place to stay our new home. Wellington Co.

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