The joy of sax
I read the sign before I heard the first few soulful sounds of the saxman standing on the corner of Ouellette Ave. and Park St.
“THAT MESSAGE
CAN WAIT
PLEASE DON’T
TEXT
AND
DRIVE”
The sign was inside his sax case which was opened to accept coins from pedestrian passersby.
Coincidentally, I noticed the sign after a driver cut me off while I crossed the street. She had just come out of the Detroit-Windsor tunnel and was turning north on Ouellette, cellphone in hand.
I was surprised not only by the timing of seeing that sign, but at the fact that this busker was belting out a tune and delivering a much-needed public service announcement. ‘Ah, some sax with class,’ I thought, while acknowledging the irony of whether it was any better to have drivers distracted by reading his message than texting.
As he started playing the first few notes of that familiar song, one that took me back to the schmaltzy days of 1981 and the movie of the same name, I found myself enjoying both the music — it sounds so much better on a sax! — and the message. The reverie returned me to those heady days when a horny teenager would subject himself to sitting in a theatre for two hours to watch Endless Love just to be with the one he loved.
This is one of the joys about working in downtown Windsor — running into the occasional (good) busker. Not necessarily the formal festival kind of busker, but the lonely soul who finds an empty spot on the pavement, pulls out his instrument and starts to play on a grey, chilly Friday afternoon in late fall.
I dropped a coin in saxman’s case and listened for a spell as he obliged me by letting me take his photograph.
I never got his name because I didn’t want to interrupt the music. I was enjoying it too much.
I wasn’t the only one. A pair of guys walking toward me seemed to like the music they were hearing also. Maybe they were remembering the ’80s too.
“There’s nothing like good sax,” one of them quipped.
Part of “Signs, Signs, Everywhere Signs” series. Click here to see more.
Claudio D’Andrea has been writing and editing for newspapers, magazine and online publications for 30 years. You can read his stuff on LinkedIn and Medium.com and follow him on Twitter.
