Old hands

This is my left hand. It's not the most nimble of hands, but it serves me well, and since I'm a fully committed southpaw, that's a good thing. I worked it hard this week, along with its partner, and a monstrous aerator I used on the lawn gave them both a pretty good beating.

Hence the spots: my hands are a constant reminder that I'm getting older. Being 57 doesn't feel nearly as old as I thought it would at 27 or 37, but there are frequent indications that I'm no longer a spring chicken. My aching back after an afternoon of yard work, for example, and those spots on my hand. The skin has grown so thin there that I don't even have to cut myself to bleed: a good bump on the back of my hand can bust it open, a lesser knock leaves me with those lovely purple spots.

These are Doc Watson's hands. On Sunday I got to hear the first half of a rescheduled-because-of-rain concert today before needing to leave for a friend's ordination service. Doc and all-around picker/music historian David Holt were both crowd pleasers at the N.C. Art Museum, where concert-goers are more likely to come back from the concession stand carrying a bottle of wine with a plastic cup turned over the top than a beer (customer limit: two beers or one bottle of wine).

This was about the fourth time I've attended a Doc Watson concert thinking it might be the last time I get to hear him play, but he's like a bluegrass picking Energizer bunny ... he just keeps coming back. Doc, who has been blind since early childhood, is 86 years old, but his distinctive voice was as resonant and his playing as pure as when I first heard him pick and sing 25 years ago.

I think I'll stop complaining now.