The day after I retired, the house got loud with silence.

Forty‑two years of purpose… then nothing.

I wandered my study and saw it again—the dusty guitar case I’d ignored for years.

Growing up in Memphis, the blues wasn’t background music; it was oxygen.

B.B. King’s The Thrill Is Gone lived in my bones.

I’d always wanted to make a guitar sing like that.

I cracked the case. The old longing came back fast and hot—then the doubt followed even faster.

I’d tried before. Every attempt ended the same way…