I met an 80 year old man today while doing laundry quite randomly. I walked down the stairs and this old guy cuts me off and throws a piece of lint in the garbage can. He didn't even say excuse me... I then popped 6 ones in the coin dispenser without really even noticing that it even happened. Then I preceded to do my normal laundry routine, all my clothes in the triple washers. 14 quarters and a cup of laundry detergent later, I was ready to sit down and do my Take the A train walking bass line. I always have to be doing something productive while I sit and wait for laundry.

10 minutes pass and the old man who cut me off sat next to me. He kindly asked me if I knew what Sonata Form is. I have taken Traditional Harmony 2 and I have learned about this 3 part form famous during Beethoven and Mozart's time. He then went on to tell me he has been writing a piece that would be played along side of Romeo and Juliet. He leaves and no later then 10 minuets later he is back with 3 pieces of lined paper with the weirdest notation I have ever seen in my life. Letters were all over the paper with weird symbols depicting the range and note value. The man asked me if I could help him notate it into regular notation.

I was really interested in what he had to say after that.

He talked about how he never learned to read music notation quickly so he developed this system as a quicker system. Being retired, he found that he could put much more time into his musical interest and has been working on this piece for 4 years. On the back of these sheets of paper I noticed familiar looking graphs. I had to ask them what they were and low and behold they were stock charts.

We talked about stocks and commodities such as oil and silver and gold for the better half of my laundry cycle. His wit was very quick and pessimistic old man style. A I don't give a flying willy about anyone who takes advantage of him. I even whipped out my Security Analysis book and taught him how to value stocks. He seemed skeptical as he was a market trader and traded as the market moved up and down. Ps- that is not really a smart way to do it. Quite risky.

I was so impressed by our interests that I agreed to listen to his piece in his apartment. All the while, I am kinda weirded out that I was hanging out with an 80 year old and going to his apartment. But he was the sweetest old man.

Walking into his room was an experience in itself. Stock papers cut out and neatly organized, books on physics, Law and his weird music notation covered his room. I thought wow he reminds me of me in 60 years in a eerily odd way. Beautiful paintings and murals he had made were hung throughout his room as well. He, Al, is what I'd like to call a renaissance man.

Al then played me his piece. My jaw dropped a little. He had a really good minor motiff that expressed romeo's despair. It was classical but a hint of modern elements. Very interesting. It was as if I had walked into a movie in the silent picture days. By the way he had 5, 6" stacks over paper with his song.

After fighting Tybalt and Romeo longing for Juliet, I taught Al about my stock valuation method. He took notes as if a eager miner had just stricken a gold vein. He inhaled what I taught him so quickly I was dizzed in astonishment.

What I noticed was that Al told me a lot about his life and even how he could escape from his room in case of an emergency. As we age we have a need to communicate with others and if a strong relationship isn't there such as a husband or wife there aren't many opportunities for seniors to meet people. So, they are very happy to make a new friend. That just makes me wonder how I will be when I turn that age. Even in the presence of loneliness, Al has transformed what some people might call loneliness into a drive that is not reproduced by many seniors his age.

Life sure does throw the weirdest things my way, but I eat it up like little kids eating up chocolate bunnies on Easter Sunday.