So, tonight I sit here in the quiet solitude of my office and I ponder all the changes that life has brought to me, and the metaphorical meanings of the symbols around me...what does it mean? How do I internalize the meanings of my child pushing me away from his bedroom door while I stand there with a stack of jeans, and suddenly he is taller than me, he is telling me how he tricked a thug out of a few bucks, and he laughs about this thugs deficient math skills, and I think, "have I raised a sociopath?" 

"Make change for me," he tells the thug, as he pulls out his little paper wallet with the musical notes printed all over its cover. My son is a living metaphor, he's been studying them for a lifetime thanks to my own sensitivity; metaphors mean everything to an Eckert because we exist for the printed word. Down the ages, somewhere back in Europe, maybe on the Mediterranean, gypsys were us, and now we are them; and I feel strangely proud watching him laugh in the guitar store like its a normal day. Sometimes he mutters a strange word or sound, and I go grab the ancient gypsy language book to see if its some dialect from the times past, and I am convinced he will carry on our tradition of fun and trickery; nothing sings like a sense of humor, so no harm is done. 

But, here I tend to extravagent thought, and maybe I am just teasing after all, and I love you all very much, and we are very pleased in our warm tropical place, with our warm feathery cover, and all of the sky around us is moonlit, and we have clouds passing over in the winds, and they are tradewinds, and they send us to our proper port.

The story is here, and it's a very fascinating story, maybe a blockbuster, but are the best stories ever really told? Maybe sometimes secrets are better kept secret, and this is how we maintain some semblence of respect and sacred utility. When the artist has to hold his brush at bay, when the writer lifts his pen in contemplation of consequence, and when the musician resorts to filth, is some secret protected, or are we simply cowards, and what does this have to do with a boy, his guitar, and a wallet? I hope we find out.