I had a friend visiting from out of town.  I live in such a beautiful place that sometimes it’s difficult to fathom.  Everywhere we go, we keep marveling at the beauty and remarking, “this is where I live”.

One night we went out to see a local band playing.  I know Brian, one of the guys that was playing in the band.  We got there and found the band packing up.  They were slated to play on the deck outside and it was threatening to rain.  Most of the band went home, but Brian and some of his friends stayed for on the deck for drinks.  It was summer, but very chilly out so the place had fire pits outside.  We joined them around one of the fire pits.  Everyone kept trying to get Brian to play his guitar.  He could play even if everyone else had gone home.

One of the guys, Ben, said he would join Brian with his gut bucket.  At this point we were cold and talking about going home.  I turned to my friend and said we couldn’t go until we saw how this played out.  We learned much about Ben’s gut bucket.  Such as he made it himself.  He doesn’t use catgut for the string as that is for fancy events such as weddings.  He uses other types of string that he can get a hold of like clothesline.  He was playing it at a different bar last week so it’s still over there.  The whole conversation we are trying to figure out what a gut bucket is – is it what we think it is – is it a metal bucket with a string attached to it?  We are both pretty sure that’s what it is.  Ben decides that he will go to the other bar to get the gut bucket and then Brian will have to play with him.  He takes off.  I ask one of the other guys if he will get lost and forget what he went out to find (there’s been a bit of alcohol consumed).  We all agree there is a 50/50 chance he’ll come back.  We decided to stick it out a little longer and wait to see if he comes back.  In about a half hour Ben is back with his gut bucket – it is what we guessed.  But, it’s in need of repair.  The string is broken and he doesn’t have another.  One of the guys goes out to Brian’s truck and finds an ice skate lace.  They work for about another 20 minutes trying to make the ice skate lace work for the string.  Ben and Brian start playing and we get treated to a small jam session on the deck.  It was totally worth the wait.  It never did rain.  Impromptu gut bucket concert on the deck.  This is where I live.