Mother
It all started on Christmas evening, 1995. Actually, it started way before that night. Julie had been making payments to Stringfellow’s in Lynchburg, (there was great deception in the check-book. Lies Lies Lies!!!) I used to stop into Stringfellow’s and look at the guitars. One day, the owner told me about a special guitar that he had made for himself. He brought it out and let me play it. WOW! He was a liar too. It wasn’t his guitar. It was mine.
Anyways… back to Christmas, 1995. It was in a Taylor box, but I wasn’t fooled. I knew what was in that box… surely not a factory-made assembly line product. It has been shipped from Virginia to Iowa, just so I could drive it back to Virginia again days later. I didn’t mind a bit though.
Later that night as we were leaving Aunt Barb’s house to return to mom’s house, my step dad (John Sieh), gave me instructions for loading my new guitar into the truck.
“Throw that mother up there!”
So that’s what I called it. One year, Julie and I went on a cruise. We were going to be gone during Mother’s Day. I couldn’t leave my guitar all alone on Mother’s Day, so I left it in the custody of a skilled guitarist who was previously stuck playing a Taylor. He has since, bought two Huss and Dalton guitars. (and to think, I didn’t get a commission)
My guitar did have a problem.
The finish.
It was a mistake.
I’m writing like Rob Bell.
It was under warranty.
This brings us all back to the present. I say “us all” because “we all” are interested.
Right now, my guitar is naked, in the shop it was born in some 13 years ago. It is surrounded by young fancy upstart guitars that are selling for twice the price. It is very lonely and misses me.
Even though I assured it, it is beginning to have doubts about the extend of my current relationship with the cheap and trashy Ibinez Artwood.
In about 4 weeks, I’ll drive over the Blue Ridge Mountains, descend down into the village of Staunton, to receive again my Huss and Dalton model DMH S# 069, after it’s complete and total make-over. I’m going to bring a bus. I want some fancy boy with with a tool belt to yell out, “Move that bus!” And when the bus moves.. there, before my eyes, will be my guitar.
I just hope it doesn’t think it’s too good for me.
March 6, 2009 at 1:33 am
Ah, the moment when man and guitar gaze upon each other for the first time in a long while. I do wish to be there to witness the reunion. Or perhaps that is one trip you must make on your own… Do you think the cheap and trashy Ibanez will succumb to jealousy over abandonment upon return of ‘the mother’? As well, I do hope there will be no hard feelings from the mother. Surely it is clear your intentions were good and the temporary separation necessary to ensure the long and happy life you two hope to share.
March 6, 2009 at 2:48 am
Stupid dumb a** guitar. That is what my wife named mine.
It was a fine day in the summer of 2006. Fluffy shady clouds were blocking the sun from making the day to hot. I had money, and it was rejecting my back pocket like my stomach rejects bad Taco Bell.
I knew that there was a small collection of very limited guitars of unparalleled quality and beauty being stored n the vault of a world famous guitar store known as Wildwood.
I don’t go to Wildwood often, even as a lover of fine instruments of exotic woods. I don’t go that often because the selection of superior AAAA grade instruments housed there, drawing musicians of fame from thousands of miles to soak in the stellar selection of instruments dreams are made of. The place screams money. I don’t usually have money. So I don’t usually tempt myself into debt only equaled by the nations trillions in imaginary legal tender.
But this day was different. The owner of the store and I had previously had a few phone conversations regarding a particular 3 extremely rare limited edition instruments he had the blessing of applying to the stores stock. I could not stand it.
I begged my wife. She reluctantly agreed to an obscene amount of money for a thing that had absolutely zero value to her. I walked into the store with my wife in tow. The owner saw my face, and immediately said that he could hear me coming from miles away.
The store was filled with stunning art work hanging from the walls. Instruments that people write songs about. Instruments that people spend the rest of their lives with, and write songs that touch millions of peoples lives.
The smell. It is a store that hits you with an aroma of exotic woods from around the globe so strong that lovers of fine instruments feel faint, and emotions well up inside, usually resulting in tears, and a sales man rubbing your back saying, “I know, it happens to the best of us…” while you roll on the floor in the fetal position crying like a 6 month old child.
The guitars I had come to see were not even on the showroom floor. No. These 3 guitars were too special to be where mere musically inclined and overly funded idiots would possibly defile them with their incapable unappreciative minds, and sweaty un-calloused hands.
The cases came out one by one. He set them carefully on the plush carpet of the “players” area. I removed all items from my person that might cause damage to the flawless finishes. I closed my eyes and took in huge lungfulls of the wooded atmosphere.
I opened the first case.
I knew what they looked like. I had seen pictures on the internet. But the beauty of what I saw first hand was so overwhelming, I had to pause and just drink in the beauty.
“Are you going to play it?” asked the owner of the store with a smirk. I needed my moment. He was not going to ruin it.
I pulled my favorite pick from my right front pocket.
The guitar slowly came out of the case.
I gazed at every angle, every inlay, every piece of trim, the serial number, the perfect neck, the buffed shine. The woods, oh the woods. Rare. Hand selected. Stunning. This is a guitar that stands out amongst seas of guitars, makes grown men stop and think like women.
The pick hit the first string. The sound resonated through my body. It was a dream come true. It was precisely the sound I wanted, precisely the sound I expected.
The second guitar came out. Then the third. Then again the first.
The first was it.
There was a small crowd of people standing against the counter watching this display of rarity in skilled craftsmanship and unparalleled beauty, in one of the best exotic and rare guitar stores on the planet. It was as if there was an air of tension as everyone watched. I felt for a moment as if I was in the center of the universe, and my decision would change the course of everything.
I looked at the store owner, and said, “Thats the one.”
Everyone there was thoroughly impressed except for my wife who had this bored look on her face, annoyed, as if she was enduring the most male testosterone moment she had ever endured before in her life.
I unloaded cash. Lettuce. I was not going to pay for this artistry with plastic or paper with routing numbers all over it. No. This demanded the respect of cash money. I counted it out as if what I was about to hand over paled in comparison to what I would receive in return.
My wife’s expression remained the same.
“You are allowing him to do this?” asked the store owner as he arranged the warranty paper work.
“Stupid dumb a** guitar.” is all she said.
So that is how my guitar got it’s name.
By the way, it is a Taylor.
http://web.mac.com/reuben68/iWeb/Site/Taylor%20914.html
March 6, 2009 at 4:45 am
I still remember the Sunday morning at the elementry school when “Mother” fell out of her stand with a loud crash during your sermon. Everyone gasped as you stared in helpless terror and, after a long moment, recited the mantra, “It’s just a piece of wood…It’s just a piece of wood…” I don’t think anyone believed you.
March 6, 2009 at 3:07 pm
I believe your knuckles turned white, Pop, as you gripped the podium, preventing yourself from sprinting to it and stroke it comfortingly…
March 6, 2009 at 10:26 pm
Very nice. You write as well as anybody. Especially like the Rob Bell reference.