I wish I'd learned to play...

A musical instrument. I can pick a the piano, and that's OK, but I really, really wish I had learned to play the violin.



A violin speaks, it cries, laughs, and is so very expressive...



When I was between ten and about fourteen, our family watched the Lawrence Welk show religiously every week. Since my Mother as well as we three girls sang very well, it was always enjoyed by the entire family.



But, there was one man on the show who played the violin with such love, and a real connection to the instrument, and it just touched my heart every time he was on.



This man was such an accomplished violinist, that eventually he left the show for more lucrative pastures, and within just a very few years, they announced that he had passed away. I was absolutely crushed.



The man that took his place on the show, was good, but he couldn't hold a candle to the previous violinist.



That was when I was a preteen, and I am now a grandmother, and I still get weepy when I think of the music he coaxed from his violin.