And now for the youngsters in our audience, the latest teen combos

Bah, kids today. Back in my day we spent our summers cleaning hog barns and walking beans and baling hay and burning the piles of plague victim carcasses. And we liked it! Because it built character, and if we did our jobs well we just might get a second helping of gruel. But these kids today? No sir, no character building, backbreaking child labor in the broiling dustbowl sun for them. No, they're off at air conditioned Rock and Roll camp, with the long hair and electric guitars and yeah yeah yeah hootenanny music.  And all we get out of it is bean fields full of weeds and some video clips to post on the internet.

Take for example my two offspring. The older one, Hawkette, first attended Power Chord Academy in Chicago in 2005 at age 13. The following year in she packed up her satchel and headed to PCA camp in San Diego to perform with her pals ABCDenial. That's her thumping the bass.

Last summer, at 15, she was back in PCA Chicago playing bass with the slightly reconstituted combo Go! Go! Mitsubachi.

Of course, 11 year old Hawkspawn decides he wants in on the action.  So here he is at Camp MusicTech in Chicago last summer covering some Led Zeppelin with his pals.  He's the lead guitarist on the left, with the white Washburn A-10.

This year, I'm surprising them with a trip to a new summer camp in Honduras: Camp Nike Sweatshop. Thank God there are still a few places in this mollycoddling world that understand character building.

Comments

[Bob]

Wow!, I'm betting you don't get ties and underwear for Father's day every year?

[iowahawk]

The wrecked hotel room bills are killing me.

[Bob]

Wait til you see the bar tab, NASA just finished adding it up.

[Tman]

Proud Hawkdad i am sure! Mine just learned how to shove things into the VCR...........of course he is only 1!

[CaptainVictory]

Just wait until they start hanging out with Ravi Shankar.

[cratedigger]

And to think I knew the chilen' before they were famous...