What I did on my summer vacation.

School is back in session. It seems everyone I talk to has the same feeling this time of year. You may have just graduated junior high, college, or, like me, are so far removed from school you barely remember any of my classes. But I remember how it *feels* to start a school year. Almost as though my first day of 4th grade was yesterday. The excitement of getting a new lunch box, trapper keeper and sneakers. The sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach as I enter a new homeroom for the first time. The butterflies of my crush on the art teacher. The smells of spaghetti in the cafeteria and the exhaust in the back of the school bus. The weight of all my books somehow stuffed in my backpack (because I couldn't figure out my locker). My trumpet case with a dinged-up trumpet inside.

I can still feel how scared I was.

And now I have my own child in school. He's flourishing. I have a feeling he'll be the kid who breezes through it all without blinking. The kind of kid I admired from a far in high school. While I was fumbling with my locker, he was playing a complicated drum pattern on his social studies book and flirting with the cute smart girl. And writing a novel in his head. And thinking of ways to get rich so he can support his old man.

I can't believe I just called myself his old man.

This summer I played a lot of fun shows, helped release a cd, found a pretty bass that I've managed to hold on for longer than a week. I sang lead on a song for the first time in my life and nearly had a heart attack on stage. I designed some cds and was happy that people still make cds. I played a show out-of-town and daydreamed of going on tour with my friends. I felt simultaneously 21 and 49. Then, last week, I played a song called Summer's Gone.

Now, it's fall. Time to start new projects, like a new School for the Dead cd. Time to think about fun shows, like Halloween, and New Year's Eve. Time to pull my boots out of the attic so I can haul my amp around in the snow. Time to appreciate the cold part of the year. That starts with going back to school.

I need to buy a new trapper keeper.