When I moved into my new place and met my next-door neighbor, he told me that every other person on our street was probably like him, a musician with a guitar and a day job. I’ve come to discover that he might be right. For starters, I must give him props. He and his girlfriend frequently sit outside at night around a small campfire while he strums on his guitar and they look out over the trees and small pond that separate our neighborhood from the next one over. I love it! It’s the best of all social distancing settings – a private concert in the back yard that’s the prerequisite six-feet away.

And then there’s Hillsborough Street, one of the main corridors running through town, where I’m now convinced that my neighbor’s guitar-per-household census count is accurate. It’s almost inevitable that in the evening, someone will be on his or her porch playing a stringed instrument of some sort. Last night, there was a woman on her porch playing a violin. That, too, was lovely. Just imagine if all this music spilled out into the streets at once. What a jam session that would be!