Out of the Box

Monday morning I saw an Amtrak cop at Union Station in DC riding around inside the station on a Segueway. This struck me as wrong for several reasons. None objective enough, however, to intellectually defend.

And really what's the harm in a cop stepping out of the box from time to time? Sometimes it's not until one steps out of the box that he or she can truly understand.

Take for instance my current experience with guitar lessons. Back in the day when I was a rock 'n roller I used to come up with all sorts of wacked-out chord progressions and rhythms. I was self-taught. It was all a big experiment.

Since it's been a few years and I never felt like my technical skills were up to snuff anyway, I signed up for guitar lessons this summer. Just for fun. And interestingly enough for the first few weeks of class I was a bit of a thorn in the side of the teacher when it came to falling in line with traditional rhythms and progressions.

"Did you take Beginner 1 & 2?" she asked last week.

Well, no. But I did put out two albums...

Perhaps the lesson then is that it may be easy to step out of the box when you're in it but once you're out of it, it's pretty difficult to get back in.

Which begs the question of whether or not our friend the Amtrak cop will ever be able to walk the beat again.