I declined the shot of whiskey offered to me. “I can’t get drunk Edmond,” I said. “I still have to do some art.” My streak of doing some art daily had extended several years. “Arthur,” Edmond said firmly. ‘If you can’t get drunk today when can you?” He was right. Our dear friend Bubba had passed away that morning. We were sitting there in his kitchen. So we drank toasts to Bubba and numbed our ache till I fell asleep on the couch. I woke up alone in a panic. It was dark and I feared it was past midnight and my streak was over. Bubba wouldn’t have liked being the reason the streak ended.  I looked at the clock and knew I had time. I grabbed a sketchpad and looked around for something to draw. I spotted the jacket hanging over the chair and sketched it ink. My streak was still alive. I went over it with watercolor the following day. Edmond’s time on this earth was not long either. His heart gave out on him while he jamming his electric guitar live on stage. Some of his ashes were put into the fireworks that splashed across the Nashville sky on that 4th of July. He would have liked that. http://pixels.com/featured/the-jacket-arthur-barnes.html