Why thank you, Doc

Doc playing John's guitar

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I was lucky enough to have seen Doc Watson play six or seven times over the last four or five years.  Intimate venues around North Carolina, South Carolina, and Virginia.  Music always sounds better played where it’s made.  Southbound comes to mind.

Doc Watson concerts were always life lessons.  Always.

The milk and honey voice and the lyrics they don’t get written anymore because too many people don’t live that way anymore. 

Those flat-picking, two finger-picking, finger-licking good notes from, his often times, Gallagher guitar.  Hard work and pride – the healthy kind. 

In between the songs, there were the lessons of faith, perseverance and optimism.  Doc's parables seemed to come to him right then and there - and they probably did.  

I once saw him at the end of a show – the audience on its feet.  A big smile beamed across his face and he jumped up and down like a kid (I could swear he could see us).  His hop, skip and jump told us he was tickled pink at how much we appreciated him.  Joy is a two-way street.

One Sunday morning a few years ago after hearing Doc the night before in South Carolina something came over me. If I waited at the Holiday Inn across from where the show was, I'd meet him.

Sure enough. Two people came walking down the hall in my direction.  I asked one of the men if the other, Doc Watson, would mind if I might stopped him on his way to breakfast and say something.

“There’s someone here who wants to say something, Doc”.

Doc looked straight ahead and said ok.  It felt strange – Doc looking straight ahead and not looking at me while I was about to bare my soul.  Was I bothering the man?

Doc Watson may have been blind but he saw a lot of wonderful things in his eighty-nine years by listening.  Maybe listening is a quicker, truer way to the heart.

"Doc, I love how you play. I love the way you sing. But I follow you around because of what's in your heart".

And he said, "Why thank you". 

Why thank you, Doc.