[Harp-L] A touching story

["Leon & Gail Albin" <spock@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

A friend who probably doesn't even know I play harmonica sent this story to
me.  I thought it might be enjoyed by many on the harp-L.  I actually didn't
listen to the song yet, my computer is slow to download today.  Of course my
main interest is that the musician featured happens to be a harmonica
player.
 
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.
Gail 

Before You Go

October 22, 2005 

The elderly parking lot attendant wasn't in a good mood. 

Neither was Sam Bierstock. It was around 1 a.m., and Bierstock, a Delray
Beach , Fla., eye doctor, business consultant, corporate speaker and
musician, was bone tired after appearing at an event. 

He pulled up in his car, and the parking attendant began to speak. "I took
two bullets for this country and look what I'm doing," he said bitterly. 

At first, Bierstock didn't know what to say to the World War II veteran. But
he rolled down his window and told the man, "Really, from the bottom of my
heart, I want to thank you." 

Then the old soldier began to cry. 

"That really got to me," Bierstock says. 

Cut to today. 

Bierstock, 58, and John Melnick, 54, of Pompano Beach - a member of
Bierstock's band, Dr. Sam and the Managed Care Band - have written a song
inspired by that old soldier in the airport parking lot. The mournful
"Before You Go" does more than salute those who fought in WWII. It
encourages people to go out of their way to thank the aging warriors before
they die. 

"If we had lost that particular war, our whole way of life would have been
shot," says Bierstock, who plays harmonica. "Every ethnic minority would be
dead. And the soldiers are now dying at the rate of about 2,000 every day. I
thought we needed to thank them." 

The song is striking a chord. Within four days of Bierstock placing it on
the Web ( <http://www.beforeyougo.us/> www.beforeyougo.us), the song and
accompanying photo essay have bounced around nine countries, producing tears
and heartfelt thanks from veterans, their sons and daughters and
grandchildren. 

"It made me cry," wrote one veteran's son. Another sent an e-mail saying
that only after his father consumed several glasses of wine would he discuss
"the unspeakable horrors" he and other soldiers had witnessed in places such
as Anzio, Iwo Jima, Bataan and Omaha Beach. "I can never thank them enough,"
the son wrote. "Thank you for thinking about them." 

Bierstock and Melnick thought about shipping it off to a professional
singer, maybe a Lee Greenwood type, but because time was running out for so
many veterans, they decided it was best to release it quickly, for free, on
the Web. They've sent the song to Sen. John McCain and others in Washington.
Already they have been invited to perform it in Houston for a Veterans Day
tribute - this after just a few days on the Web. They hope every veteran in
America gets a chance to hear it. 

Turn up your volume and please visit
<http://www.managedmusic.com/beforeyougo.html> Before You Go by Dr. Sam &
The Frivolous Action Blues Band.