Okay – Nancy covered a lot about our evening with Glenn, but I can add a few things that she didn’t mention. We were humbled, yet, surprised, that Glenn had kept that piece of paper with our names and addresses on it. We had not wanted to be presumptuous and include our telephone numbers because he had only asked for our addresses. TBH, we got a little thrill over the thought of Glenn tracking us down through directory assistance.
As she said, after the show the first night, we freshened up a bit before we ascended to the ‘West Covina’ suite. As we stood at that door to the suite I became a nervous wreck. I couldn't help thinking “How in the world did this happen? What in hell am I doing here – I am so freakin’ out of my league. But once we got inside, Glenn, Taylor, and Tommy were so friendly that I was fine. The conversation was extremely casual and there was never a loss for words the entire evening.
Taylor, who was 16 at the time, was a very charming and beautiful young lady. You would have thought she may be pretty bored sitting there with dad and his fan girls, but she was totally engaged in the convo even as she was drawing throughout the evening. Glenn called her by her nickname “Cha Cha” and Tommy called her “T.” When I mentioned that Taylor looked just like her mother, Tommy looked at me and said she acted just like her too. He also threw in that Glenn had really well-grounded and level-headed kids, and that “they have been brought up right”. At one point, I joked about how when the kids get taller than me (usually by the age of 10), I have a tradition of giving them a few whacks on the butt. Taylor kind of jerked her butt out of the way.
Now, more about the girl’s who had found out Glenn’s room number. First of all, I don’t know what they said to the security ladies at the elevator, but they, obviously, convinced them to let them by. Maybe the security ladies figured they were more ‘golf’ girls. When they knocked on the door, Tommy called me over there to help out for some reason. At that point, Glenn, who was sitting in a chair with a straight shot to the door, moved over out of their sight. Tommy and I cracked the door with the chain lock on. They were pretty persistent even though we kept telling them “It was a mistake”. I’m pretty sure that they, in fact, knew that it was Glenn’s suite and they wouldn’t leave until we finally just closed the door. I don’t know what they were expecting, but they sure did give it a good try.
Back to the show that night, Glenn played a lot more guitar solos than usual, including the beautiful
I Dreamed There Was No War, which as Nancy mentioned, I gave him high praise. Glenn mentioned during the show that “his fingers were yelling at him for it”. In fact he had them “talk” and “whine”.
Other than that mention, he never indicated he felt bad in any way and he put his heart and soul in his performance. During our visit, he also mentioned that he had a persistent headache, but again, never showed any signs of feeling bad while we were there. However, we learned at the show the next evening that he had to summon a local rheumatologist to come in and treat him for a bad flare up after we left Thursday night. He had given the doctor comp tickets for the show and dedicated a song him for his help. Poor thing – I felt so bad for him, but his performance that night was just as good, if not better, than the previous night. What a dedicated entertainer he was.
To put some icing on the cake, during Friday night’s show, Taylor came out to give Glenn a guitar, and as she left the stage, she walked over to us and gave us a ‘pinkie’ wave. Then as if this trip couldn’t get any better, Glenn dedicated
I Love to Watch a Woman Dance to us. Here are his exact words:
“I’d like to dedicate this song to some friends of mine – Lissa from California, Nancy from Indiana, and Kay from Virginia. They drove all the way out here to watch the old man sing.”
I hadn’t thought it was possible for my respect and admiration for this man to get any higher, but it continued to grow. As Nancy said, we were more fortunate to have a few more encounters with Glenn after that. I totally understand how lucky I am to have had these precious moments. But, I guess it’s human nature to always yearn for more, so I had always hoped for yet another that will never come.