At the end of my Myers-Briggs presentation, a gray haired lady approached me and said “Hi, my name is Victoria and you need to meet my husband, he is a maestro.” I was taken back as all I could think about was the Jerry Seinfeld episode with “the Maestro”. She was intrigued on how I combined music and the Myers-Briggs Personality Inventory and thought I would be a great connection with her husband. I got his name, thanked her and was more intrigued at that point than I was interested. I kept looking at his name and finally one day I called. The voice on the other end had a heavy Hispanic accent as he warmly greeted me as if he had been expecting my call. “Victoria told me all you and I would love to meet you and have you over for dinner.” Wow…I had spent all of 5 minutes with his wife and he was opening the doors for me as if we were long lost friends, so I thought sure, why not…I am an adventurer... “I would love to.”

As I pulled up to his studio, I wasn’t quite sure what I was getting into….the sign said Baquero Gallery. I thought he was a musician… a maestro. Well, I’ve come this far…I knocked on the door and was warmly greeted by a Don Quiote looking figure…. “Maestro, how are you, come on in my studio, we have been looking forward to meeting you.” For the next 6 hours I was dined at the local Chinese food restaurant, given the tour of his art studio, showed his collection of classical guitars, and was treated like there was no tomorrow. He decided that night that I could not be a musician if I did not read music and he was going to teach me once a week for $20. I could not pass this up. This earth angel was David Baquero, once a child prodigy from Columbia who was a master violinist and guitarist as well as an incredibly talented artist who had once lived and was taught by Andre Segovia, had given a private concert to Fidel Castro, and played in Carnegie Hall numerous times.

As it turns out, I went to the Maestro’s house every week for a year plus and really didn’t learn to read music but what I learned was how to love myself and to live just for that moment. We played guitar, built a guitar, did artwork, cooked, met the “flower man”, played pool and ping pong (both on tables he built) and most of all I learned to listen, to trust and to know that if not now…..when?