My Guitar Story

I've been trying to clean my home and downsize on all the 'stuff' I have and don't use.  This is a monumental job!!!  One day recently, I was in the back room that used to be the master bedroom and is now just a junk storage room, and on the wall I noticed the acoustic guitar my cousin Vern gave to me one time when Mom, Dad & I went to visit Vern and his family.  Seeing it reminded me that when I was around 13 - 14 years old I wanted a guitar and lessons, so or Christmas that year, I got the guitar, a nice little acoustic perfect for a first time player, and over the next year or so I took lessons from one of our neighbors that was a music teacher.  I wasn't very good at it, but I did like to play my guitar.  A few years later, I got married and my husband would not allow me to play the guitar, though he did play it himself.  Yes, he was better at it than I was, but he would have had to learn at some point too, and it was MY guitar.  However, he was my husband and his word was my command.  Needless to say, the marriage did not last a long time as I was not happy being someones property, someones slave, doing as I was ordered.

Some time after the marriage ended, I met and fell in love with a base guitar player and we decided to move in together.  He was helping me move my stuff in his car from where I lived about 45 minutes away from where we were to live.  Since the car and trunk were full and when we stopped to visit Mom she gave me something else to take, he took some things out of the trunk, putting them on the ground, and rearranged the things, putting them back into the trunk.  Unfortunately, somehow the guitar (which he had never heard me play) got left on the ground instead of being put back into the trunk of the car, and as we backed out of my parent's driveway, there was an awful crunching sound.  Yes, my guitar had been run over and it, along with its case, were totally destroyed!!!  Though it saddened me to loose my instrument, I still loved him, we still lived together, and after a few months he ended our relationship.

It was many years later when we visited cousin Vern and his wife Helen, and hearing the story he gave me an old guitar they had kicking around their home.  I had carpel tunnel problems at that time, so was not able to play it and just hung it on the wall of my bedroom, thinking that some day I would take it up again.  I never have and doubt that I ever will.  Maybe I will give it away on Freecycle... it might make someone a nice Christmas gift!!

Today I am remembering this and sharing this story with you because I was surfing the net as I often do, and I ended up looking at a  cool Fender Blacktop at Musicians friend. Of course, it brought this all back into my mind and I decided to share it.  I sometimes wonder, if my husband had allowed me to continue playing my guitar, would I still be playing one now? Would I have gotten good at playing? There is no way I will ever know the answers to these or other questions I could ask, like "if he had allowed me to play the guitar, would he have not been so strict and controlling and therefor would we still be married".  He passed away in June of 1999, so I would now be a widow... or maybe had he lived differently he might have lived longer.  These are all "what came first, the chicken or the egg" questions.