The book's title is "Wisdom for a Young Musician." It was mailed to me about 30 years too late.

Publishing companies occasionally send me a free book, gambling on the off chance I'll write something that might convince others to actually buy a copy.

It's one of the fringe benefits that come with newspaper jobs.

I needed this book in 1976, the year I gave up air guitar and started learning real chords on an acoustic instrument my parents gave me for Christmas.

I had asked for a motorcycle. They misunderstood and bought me a Yamaha FG-75 guitar.

A few short years later, I was good enough to play Dan Fogelberg songs at weddings.

OK, it was one Dan Fogelberg song, "Longer," but I must have played it during three or four otherwise joyous ceremonies.

After each of those weddings, little old ladies told me I was talented, and I believed them.

Never underestimate the power of a casual compliment to inspire delusional thinking.

"Young man, you have quite an ear for the guitar."

"Thank you, ma'am. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to go quit college and wait for Nashville to find me."

For a short time, I played in a loosely formed country band with some friends from high school. Between songs that we practiced inside a mini-storage facility, we devised a back-and-forth game we called roof ball.

It's like volleyball, but the equipment is smaller and must roll or bounce across asphalt shingles between teams. A roof ball can be difficult to handle when it takes an odd bounce off the gutter, but the best players can return service without spilling the cold beverage in their opposing hand.

Before long, we were playing more roof-ball tournaments than songs. That's the wrong way to go about becoming a professional musician, according to this new book by Bruce Warren.

Warren has compiled a lot of great advice and insights from Willie Nelson to Sting to lesser-known but successful acts such as Old Crow Medicine Show.

Most of it can be summed up with a bit of advice singer-songwriter John Francis says he received early in his career from producer Phil Nicolo: "Play, play, play, put your head down and keep on playing!"

In other words, whatever it is you want to do well, do it all the time.

I still play my guitar, but not all the time like Willie and Sting and everyone else in Warren's book.

I might fall behind those guys before the "Orange Blossom Special" finishes a run, but I'd bet my old FG-75 against their Gibsons in a friendly game of roof ball.

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A note to readers:

Several people took last week's column to task for the way I handled a verbal employment contract with my young daughter, Carly Grace, who removed pine cones from our yard expecting to be paid a nickel for each one.

Instead of the $15 dollars she had earned, I offered to elevate her life savings of $92 to an even $100 — a deal most any 6-year-old would gleefully accept.

Readers such as Carol Tompkins of Beaumont, Texas, suggested that the way I had taken advantage of Carly's limited math skills placed a cloud of suspicion over my parenting skills.

"...You pulled a bait and switch on her," she said. "You took advantage of your child and should be ashamed of yourself."

To Carol and everyone else — including Herb Garrison, who tried to hand me enough cash during church to "make things right" — I have atoned for my sins and paid Carly the remainder of what was hers all along.

In the words of Henry Ward Beecher, "Repentance is another name for aspiration." I hope you readers and Carly will forgive me anyway.