Serenade

Saturday night

Paul Simon was standing in the top of a tree, holding an acoustic guitar. He was about to debut a new song that he'd written for a young girl, who was maybe 17. She sat, wide-eyed, on one of the lower branches, somewhat embarrassed by the whole thing.

I wanted to get a good look at the goings-on, so I climbed the tree myself. The lowest branches were above my head, so I had to put both arms around the trunk and angle my feet against it as I shimmied skyward.

*****

Last night my wife and I went to see The Nashville Symphony play a concert of music by Beethoven and Tchaikovsky at the new Schermerhorn Center downtown. The building and the grounds were quite impressive, and both of us admired the trees planted around the perimeter, although we didn't know what they were. Their lowest branches were above my head.