Once upon a time it was possible to fly New York - Paris round-trip for $200.00. TWA called it Youth Fare. Aside from being young, the only catch was that you had to make the return trip within one year of the outgoing flight. As chance would have it, the time-restricted return flight and a number of other unforeseen circumstances led to my hearing Andrés Segovia and a famous blues artist on the same winter day in Chicago.

In January of 1972, I took advantage of the Youth Fare offer on my first foray to Barcelona, Spain to study the classic guitar with Eduardo Sainz de la Maza. My original plan was to study intensively for one year, then return to audition at an American conservatory or university music department. Almost as soon as I had begun lessons with Sr. Eduardo, however, I realized that one year wasn't enough, but I didn't want to lose the option of the cheap return flight. So, after eleven months in Spain, I bid a fond but temporary goodbye to my teacher, newfound friends and employer - the Inlingua School of Languages - and took the flight home.

Back in the USA, times hadn't changed much in the St. Louis area where my parents lived. As many of my high school friends had left the region, I was eager to see Jerry Tertocha my best friend from college and an outstanding classic guitarist then living in Champaign, Illinois. I also decided to drive to southern Oregon where I had most recently lived in the idyllic town of Ashland, home of the Oregon Shakespearian Festival.

Through a friend of Jerry's in Champaign, I acquired a front-row, center seat to Andrés Segovia's annual concert at Orchestra Hall in Chicago. A few days later I set off for Oregon in my Rambler station wagon.

It's always an adventure driving across the American West. On this trip, I was forced to stop in Albuquerque for a new transmission for the Rambler. Being young and foolish, I had already picked up a racially mixed couple that was hitch hiking to no particular destination other than "west". Nearly penniless, they were counting on God to watch out for them, so we shared a motel room near the garage that fixed my car. Like I said- "young and foolish," perhaps mitigated by "outgoing" and "unsuspecting" in more innocent times. I dropped the couple off at a revival tent in Phoenix where I visited my sister and husband with their infant son Justin, whom I was meeting for the first time.

The next day I spent a fascinating morning with my brother-in-law visiting an ancient Native American cliff dwelling, and in the evening my sister had arranged for me to meet an associate who was a palm reader. Always the skeptic in such matters, I went along with it. I learned that in one of my past lives I had been an artist or lutenist who had left the pursuit of the muse to return to my father's farm where I was kicked in the head by a horse and subsequently died.

My heart line indicated that I had "experienced a great loss but would be healed in time." [The first part was true and the second part would come to pass, followed by a second round of both.] I was also advised to drink more fruit juice and particularly prune juice to avoid digestive problems and the occurrence of colon cancer. The next day I took the palm reader's advice a little too seriously and, within a couple of hours, paid the price.

I drove on through southern California to find a friend in Riverside. Ken Kusudo's parents were first-generation Japanese immigrants and had been held in a Japanese-American internment camp during World War II. It was through Ken that I first heard of the internment camps on American soil. I learned from Ken's mother that he was out of town to play a wedding, but would return the following morning to perform in a praise band. I surprised him by showing at the church.

In Oregon, I connected with many good friends and had a perfectly wonderful time. In fact, it was very hard to leave Ashland and I didn't allow but three and a half days to get to my front row seat to hear Segovia in Chicago. I took a diagonal route back through northern California then on to Salt Lake City where my friend Jerry had just moved following a modern dance troupe he had performed with. This was the early 70s after all; it seemed as if nobody stayed at home after graduation and once you had left, you weren't expected to go back. A blanket of snow had covered Salt Lake by the time I arrived. The same storm would plague me all the way to Chicago and St. Louis.

After a short night's sleep at Jerry's place in Salt Lake, I drove on east across Wyoming, into the worst of the snowstorm. I didn't get far that day even though I persisted longer than I should have. I saw several cars and trucks abandoned in ditches and finally took the hint that I should get off the roads until they could be plowed. Around midnight, I found a cozy motel in the middle of nowhere and got a few hours rest before moving on. I had just a day and a half to get to Chicago and my front row seat to see Segovia!

Driving on in the morning, I became fatigued so I picked up another hitch-hiker so he could drive while I slept. I would never do that now, but it worked out fine then. That day and into the next, I made it all the way to Iowa City. I rested for a few hours at another friend's home there and got up early to see the famous Black Angel statue in a local cemetery, the inspiration for many a poem written in the Iowa Writers Workshop.

Running on adrenalin by now, I was on the last leg to Chicago having driven from Illinois to Oregon and back. So close to my destination, I was excited and wide-awake. I had been to Chicago on three previous occasions so it wasn't hard to find Michigan Avenue and Orchestra Hall. With only a few minutes left before the start of Segovia's afternoon concert, I parked in the subterranean pay parking lot defying the frugal leanings of my Scottish ancestry.

Once inside Orchestra Hall, I presented my ticket to the usher, hurried down the isle to the front row and took my seat, still feeling the vibrations of my cross-country trip. I just had time to say hello to the person who had sold me the ticket when Maestro Segovia walked on stage in his dignified manner.

Having heard Segovia once before in the same hall, the concert was everything I had expected, but simply remarkable to witness from the front row. I could clearly view the sausage-like fingers weaving their magic, the generous use of vibrato in music from all periods and, of course, the famous sense of composure and egoism that empowered Segovia to tortuously wait out any extraneous noise in the audience before beginning a piece. I forgot my exhaustion and all of the events of the past few days and gave myself over to the music.

That would be the logical end of this story if I hadn't called on still another pod of college buddies in Chicago. Jane, Jackie, and Alice were pursuing advanced degrees at the University of Chicago and so were well informed about campus events. The Boyfriend starring Tommy Tune and Twiggy was showing at a campus theater that night, after which the renowned blues singer Muddy Waters would perform at a sock hop in a gym. Would I like to go? Oh yeah!

I was drained by the time I entered the movie theater and have to admit I slept through a good deal of the film. Afterward, Jackie and I went on to the gym to hear Muddy Waters. Blues harmonica master Joseph Cotton opened the show and after a few tunes introduced Muddy to a warm round of applause. Muddy walked out smiling and nodding and was handed a battered Strat. He sat down as the band broke into the intro for "Hoochie Coochie Man". I will never forget how Muddy's face and demeanor transformed as he began to play and sing:

Gypsy woman told my mother,
Before I was born
Got a boy-child comin'
Gonna be a son of a gun...

He was all business now, and here I was- as close to Muddy Waters as I had been to Segovia, even closer! I'm not a blues guitarist, but I could appreciate the slide work he was doing in an open tuning.

Muddy Waters was 58 years old when I heard him in Chicago but you would never have been able to guess his age when he was performing. Strangely, while I have forgotten the selections that Segovia played, I can remember some of Muddy's tune list. There was another difference in the two performances in that the crowd that heard Muddy was there to have a good time listening or dancing. Some of us floated out of that gym like figures in a painting by Marc Chagall.

I had driven cross-country to hear Andrés Segovia. Seeing Muddy Waters perform the same day was an unexpected bonus. I have reflected on that trip and the events of that winter day in Chicago many times, and realized it's rare that I have been able to cram so much music and living into such a brief period. I love it when that happens.