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...
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