Geeeee-tarrrr....

Ah the Guitar!  I love the guitar.

Now, make no mistake...I do not PLAY the guitar.  As a person who sings, but has no particular talent for instruments, (although I can honk a mean pitch pipe, if I do say so myself.) I have ALWAYS loved the guitar...or rather "the guy with the guitar" who would show up places so that I could sing along.

I don't know for certain what my first memory of "the guy with the guitar" was...but I will tell you that by the time I was 9 or 10, I had a friend whose Dad always threw those parties where "the guy with the guitar" would show up. As these parties happened at least monthly, I had a lot of exposure. To this day, my musical tastes are affected by those folksy ballads.

Now, my Dad was one of those "guys with a guitar" for a good portion of my childhood.  My Dad was a pretty interesting person, musically.  Never really trained...I'm not positive that he didn't have piano lessons as a little kid but nothing beyond that...but give him a piano and he could pick out anything.  Sometime in the late 1970s, he got "into" the guitar.

He played and played and played until, just like the piano, he could pick out anything.  So, when, at about 9 years old, I WANTED a guitar, he was ALL over it.  Got me a little guitar...got me lessons...sat next to me and played...showed me how to tune the guitar to itself...all kinds of things.  I specifically remember learning to play "Peaceful, Easy Feeling".

But then, I stopped.  I don't remember any major life changing event the made me stop...my memories of the guitar just fade away.  By the time I was 12, I KNOW I was not playing at all because I remember watching a friend who really COULD play and thinking, "Wish I could play..."  And it's pretty much been that way ever since.

Somewhere along the way, where the guitars went was lost on me.  Guitars are not like pianos...pianos are REALLY hard to move and get rid of...guitars...not so much.  All I knew was that we'd HAD guitars in Pennsylvania and Florida, but by the time we got to California, we didn't have them anymore.

Now, my dad had been making noise for about 2 years about wanting to get a guitar again...but he hadn't been able to find a nice enough cheap one.  Christmas of 2008, mom and I found a little guitar ornament...with the promise that we WOULD find one.  By Christmas of 2009, I'd found one.  Costco had a little Fender on sale for $99...so I got one for our family and mom and I went in together and got one for Dad.

You should have seen my dad with that guitar.  It was a complete surprise.  He was SHOCKED...And completely entranced.  With the opening of the guitar, we lost him for the next couple of hours.  He sat there and plucked...and strummed and tuned and plucked some more.  He was re-figuring out all the songs he used to know and trying out all the chords he'd forgotten.  I honestly don't think that I've seen him THAT excited about a gift someone else gave him, and I was SO happy.

His excitement really struck a fire in us...and we practiced and practiced and were starting to get calluses on our fingers...

As for Dad, he took the guitar home and continued playing until February, when he died...

That guitar was the first thing that I saw when I walked into the RV after arriving in Arizona after his death.

I don't want to lose this post to the melancholy into which it seems to be headed...because for the most part, this will not be melancholy...but I wanted to be clear WHY we quit playing for awhile.

During the week that we were in Arizona for his memorial, the guitar played another role.  See, my cousin came.  Now I hadn't seen my cousin in 13-15 years...but it turned out that he had something from Dad.  Dad had given my cousin our guitars some 20 years before, so he showed up with my Dad's guitar from my childhood...and the guitar my little 9 year old self played.  It was pretty cool...and pretty gut wrenching...and memory jogging.

My brother and I had a great time playing with those guitars.  He got to hear the story of our Christmas gift.  He had a few stories of his own.  And I shared the teeny tiny bit that I'd learned at that point...



When it was time to go home, Uncle BakerMan and I had decided that he would take Dad's old guitar and I would take my little-girl-guitar and the one we'd bought Dad at Christmas...that would give me 3 for the 3 girls so that we could play.

Right.

Well, as I said...the guitar has played a pretty big role in my life this last 9 months.  Thankfully, we had to wait until April, when mom got here, for Dad's guitars...but our guitar was sitting right where I'd left it, in my bedroom.  Can't tell you how many times I just sat there and looked at it.  Can't tell you how many times I told one girl or another, "Not right now" and sadly, even scolded them for strumming it while it stood on it's stand.  Can't tell you how many times I've grieved while I watched the dust collect.

Last week was actually a really hard guitar week.  I wished that I knew how to play it over and over because then I could take it camping.  I mean, what could be better than a girl, a guitar and a campfire?

So, this week I made a decision. For crying out loud...how is a dusty guitar a "good" memory of my Dad? So I took them ALL out...dusted them off...found a place to put them RIGHT OUT in plain site. AND.


And, I started the girls learning the teeny tiny bit that I know.  And played a little myself.

Time for some new memories...

Some of them a little wistful...


Some of them downright funny...


All of them linked SO HARD in my mind.

Miss you, Daddy.

See ya around...

Camping 2010

This is another one of those posts being written after the fact…but I’m afraid that SO many people know the why and where of the trip that this will be no surprise.

So without further a do…Please be aware that Stack and Family went camping for Stack’s most MOMENTOUS…errr…22nd Birthday!!! That’s right, I was 22 again this weekend.

Now it didn’t start out that way….but remember last week when the girls NEEDED a team building project…after that, they BEGGED and PLEADED to go on a church camping trip that we’d heard about a month or so ago that was happening on my birthday weekend. “Oh PLEASE…OH PLEASE, Momma!! Please!” they said and did that eye batting and kissing thing that they do.



They had a couple of things going for them…the first being that a bunch of people that we KNEW were going…the second being that I used to REALLY like camping. (But then we moved to a place that has actual seasons that mean you can’t just camp whenever…then we had a baby…then another…then we just stopped thinking of it as an option. ) The third and might I say, THE KICKER, was that it was my birthday and a big one and I really wanted to play.

So off we went.

Let me first say that the packing was incredibly hard. The last time I camped was with one GUY who could really take care of himself…and one little girl who could be stuffed in just anywhere…and it was summer…in California.

This time…Bubba wasn’t going to get to us until late in the day (he has that pesky job that we absolutely wish to keep) so it was pretty much on me. And this time I have a GUY who can really take care of himself…and one little girl who MOSTLY stuffs in just anywhere who is VERY short of clothes for some reason…and two BIG girls who are still at the HELPING phase…which is sometimes terrific and sometimes problematic…but it’s also ALMOST winter, which meant making sure that we had enough cold weather gear. The first night was slated to be the coldest night yet…and if it met it’s predictions came in a about 36 degrees…when the second night came and it was in the 40s we were feeling pretty warm.

So there was ALL of the stuff, 2 tents/tarps, 4 air mattresses, 5 sleeping bags, food, kitchen gear, wood, brickets, clothes for all but Bubba…oh, and KIDS…had to fit into that little ole van. It was STUFFED to the gills.

AND…I was running late all day. So we didn’t actually pull IN to the campsite until about 5:30 pm…not very long before dark…and still 2 hours ahead of Bubba.

Lest you think for one more minute that this lead to any kind of a BAD trip…think again!!

We had caravanned with a friend (Mrs. H) so when we got to the site, we met up with her husband, Mr. H and several other families that were already there and already set up. Mr. H called to Mr. G to come over and help me set up (I’d really just asked WHERE on earth to put the tent) and in they rode on their white chargers with extra hands and fire and an AMAZING air pump that plugged into my car battery and made short work of our mattresses. With the help of MY crack team…they had that tent up in a jiffy.

Okay…so NOW we just had to find stuff. In pretty short order I realized that all those mattresses were NOT gonna fit into even our big tent. Luckily, I brought the old purple tent. So Beanie and I got started setting up that tent. By now it was dark and we had the car going for the headlights. Not ideal! Also, not far into the setup, I discovered that one of the tent poles was broken so, as far as my experience and ingenuity was concerned…that tent was kapootz! Turns out Bubba had better ingenuity in this case, but not until QUITE a bit later in the night.

As the camp got set up and we ran into a few road blocks, I realized that it was getting late and the kids were getting hungry and my big “burger” fantasies were just not gonna happen tonight. So I as I pulled the last quesadilla off the pan for the girls…Bubba arrived.

The next part happened in such quick succession, I’m not sure what happened first. I just know that Bubba got there. Now in no particular order…

I told Monkey Face to eat her quesadilla…

I told Bubba about the tent…

Bubba told Monkey Face to eat her quesadilla…

Bubba started scheming ways to use the tent anyway…

I told Monkey Face to eat her quesadilla…

I started pulling the seats out of the van for the worst case scenario…

I chased Monkey Face back to the table and told her to eat her quesadilla…

AND THEN…
up from the murky street I hear the crunch, crunch of shoes on gravel…and then the unmistakable strains of “Happy Birthday toooooooo Yoooooooooouuu!” And who should happen to “show up” but the leaders of our care group (from church) Mr. and Mrs. W and their kids and one other kid they dragged along…SINGING to me…and BRINGING me a chocolate cake with CHOCOLATE frosting and a gift…and water bottles…and plates and forks and napkins…basically everything we would need so that we wouldn’t have to FIND it to enjoy the party.

I was FLOORED! Seriously! And ENCHANTED! Seriously!

Lanterns make it hard to get a good shot...but believe it or not...that's Beanie...and that lady in there is Mrs. W.



They made it sound like not a huge deal…coming out to a campsite with cake and presents and stuff…but …See I’ve been to the Ws home and it’s about 25-30 minutes from mine. The camp site was EASILY an hour from my house, so even if they lived on the way…they still had to come 25-30 minutes over with the cake and the present and the kids. Just for me. Just for my birthday. It was wonderful…and I pretty much floated the rest if the evening.

There was SO much more to the trip…for instance, Bubba did figure out how to use the tent with only two poles…and EVENTUALLY Monkey Face ate her quesadilla…but I think that’s all I’m posting for now.

Except pictures of course...if you follow this blog at ALL, you know I'm big on, "I'll get to that later..." and, frankly, later rarely comes...

We played a couple of great games...in this one, we all took hands across a circle...each hand holding someone else...and then tried to untangle and end up in a circle again. Our team only ever succeeded in making two circles intertwined...but the other team...the one with the littler kids manage it quite a few times...



What usually happens when you have a big ole group of people with a lot of kids??? That's right, a pyramid or two, of course...





And they also got a bunch of the kids in a circle, each one with his or her feet on the back of the kid behind them...and made them do push-ups. Well, to be honest, made them try to do PART of a push up...seemed like a great idea...and there was definite giggling...but the collapsing was the best part.



We had a terrific time out there...even though it was a bit cold at night...and made some great memories. I can not WAIT until spring!!!

I came home to find that a very good friend’s brother was struggling for his life…and so I’ve been blessed to keep three of her little girls with me. Please pray for him, he was doing a little better last night…but I know how stressful this wait is for all of the family.

Until next time, dear reader…

See ya around…