Thanks to everybody for the kind and supportive words. Oddly there are things I took from my upbringing that I wouldn't change. Part of it came from family values, and was enhanced by the time in the military. Like, I am NEVER late. NEVER. I'd rather be 20 minutes early than 1 minute late. Veterans in general share that punctuality. When I was still working, I NEVER took days off. I can't give you a better example that Friday, Jan 25th, 2013. A car crossed a slippery highway during a snow storm and hit me broadside. I had some broken ribs on the left side, some bruised on the right, a bruised sternum from the air bag, small cuts all over my face from the shattered driver's side window, and a concussion from my head striking the passenger side window when the car hit the guard rail and careened back out into the second lane of traffic, spun around 180 degrees. The impact was so hard it knocked both shoes off and somehow I was "squirted" out of my seat belt.

Despite all of that, and given that it was a Friday, I took exactly 2 days off work the next week. As soon as the concussion (and it was a bad one) subsided to where I could drive, I went back to work. My logic was "I can be in pain at home or at the office. The office needs me because nobody will have to pick up my slack." The bosses worked with me to make sure I could sit all day, including bringing me lunch at noon and making sure I had water all day long. That is the work ethic I learned from observing my father. He never took a day off.

I made his disdain for music as a career path a positive. When you factor in how stubborn I am, that drove me to work harder, practice more, and drive band members to get every bit out of all of us that I could. I was going to show him that being in a band was a job like working in a factory, which he did his whole working life. The disconnect first came to a head when I told him, in these words, "You did fine by us. You worked hard to make sure we had a comfortable place to live, food and clothes, as well as finding ways to fund our hobbies. But I am the next generation, and blue collar is not for me. I don't want to be what you were. I have talents you didn't have and you must have known that because you sent me to lessons. Now that I am using that talent to forge out a career you are fighting me."

Then he got sick. His work as a finish buffer of musical instruments exposed him to lacquers and various other chemical compounds, and he ended up with asthma, emphysema, and as a result of smoking WAY too much for 45 years on top of the other stuff, lung cancer. When that happened, he checked out. He gave up and became mad at the world for things that were the result of his conscious choices. I am now 70, just 3 years younger than he was when he died, and never found the urge or desire to even try smoking. I have never touched a drug, even weed, despite being in a place where it grew wild for 18 months. And I am now 28 years beyond the years I drank way too much. Dec 31, 1993 was the last time I had a drink. He blamed everybody for his eventuality, and initially I bought into it. I have come to terms with it for the most part. As I near the end of my own life's journey and have a grasp on what deflection is, I understand why he was like he was. (That was HIS "why". To blame everybody else for his troubles.)

Part of his disdain for me was that I divorced the mother of my children and that was just not something his generation did. Compounding the felony was that I was on the road so much that 2 of his 6 grandchildren, who lived out of state, never came up to visit. Apparently I was supposed to stay with that horrible woman because he wanted me to. Then factor in that I quit the post office, something he thought was a dream job (it wasn't), to pursue music, and that was the next cog in his hate machine.

So yeah, I understand that his not being supportive of my choice or career to the point where he tried to undermine me at every turn was on him and not me. It's just hard to put to rest, and the competitive nature in me has made my inability to write the next White Christmas seem like another failure, like baseball when I was a kid, like relationships in my whole life... when I know in my heart that I am striving
for something that is extremely unlikely if only from a purely statistical perspective. Even if I DID write the next White Christmas it would never get any further than my hard drive because I have no clue how to get it out of my house and on the way to my Grammy Award.

As far as therapy, I have spent my share of time with shrinks and it helped some, but ultimately I am such a competitive person that I even find myself in a competition between the angel on my right shoulder and the devil on my left.

My best friend once told me "You are so stubborn you'd bury yourself alive to prove you know how to use a shovel." And she was right.

You've all seen that come out here from time to time. I am really a good guy with a great sense of humor and a huge heart. It just doesn't always show through.

But I digress, in this thread that largely due to me has gone WAY off track. Thank you all again for your kind words.

So just to appear to be on topic, I like pop music that was pop music when I was in my musically formative years. In the Motown, AWB, EW&F, TOP years.