My Assignment

In 1968, one of my tasks was to keep an eye on my cousin's fiancé.  She was working in Toronto and he in Ottawa, so I was asked to accompany him to parties and other potentially hazardous gatherings.  Being very wealthy, exceedingly polite and disarmingly charming, this young man was a target to every predatory female we knew.  And just as today, the public thoroughfare was replete with them.  So, yours truly was squired around in high style until they married. 

Thus it was I found myself in the front row in the old Capital Theatre on Bank Street gazing upon the peerless Jimi Hendrix.  Nothing but the best seats for "J", so I benefitted.  This adventure came vividly back to me as I watched an excellent documentary on the late brilliant troubadour on PBS (where else) last evening.  I hadn't really understood how great Jimi was at the time because I didn't know the first thing about playing a guitar, but to hear the likes of Paul McCartney rave about his raw talent was to finally understand that what he did with a bit of wood and some wire was nothing short of magnificent. 

By the time I sat in rapt amazement in that beautiful, old theatre, Mr. Hendrix was in full flight, indulging himself on everything from the music he played to the drugs he took.  Remember the headbands he used to wear?  Soaked in LSD.  "Jimi didn't think about anything except his guitar and the women he slept with.  He didn't care about politics, he never talked about world affairs....nothing but women and music," said one of his contemporaries. 

Man, that's concentration for you.  The night I saw him he did it all -- played with his teeth, gyrated and finally set his guitar on fire.  Guess it's no surprise Johnny Allen Hendrix, voted the sixth greatest guitarist of all time, died at 27.  What more could he have packed into so few years?

As for my cousin?  Sadly she succumbed to ovarian cancer in her fifties.  My old friend "J"?  Still one of my best, oldest and truest friends