An Old Friend Is Coming Home

I checked on my guitar today. She’s been in the guitar hospital for six weeks, having some middle-age work done. You know, pick guard, re-set her neck, new frets / bridge / nut (Is nut replacement an option for…never mind…).  Sean, the luthier tells me she’s out of danger and in recovery and I can’t wait to bring her home.

I’ve had a number of guitars over the years: Louise the FG-180 that I bought from my bro-in-law and kept with me through the Navy, the gorgeous – and riotously expensive - classical that my ‘buddy’ Ed took off with back in 1979, the 12-string that sounded so-o-o sweet when finger-picked, a couple of others that I picked up and put down over the years. But this guitar is my guitar.

This gitfiddle has been with me since 1976. Thirty-five years now. Through singing for my supper first with Vala and then with Bill and then solo. Through times when I felt loved and times when I didn’t. She’s the one I was picking when T.J. taught me bluegrass rhythm and the one I used to play at the old folks’ homes with Mike. And I had her in hand when Mark Harville taught me to play Classical Gas.

She’s accompanied me singing folk, a little cool jazz, some 12-bar blues, a lot of country rock and even show tunes. She’s helped me make friends with Tom Paxton, Mimi Farina, Pete Seeger, Janice Ian, Bob Dylan, Gordon Lightfoot, the Dillards, Judy Collins, PP&M, Harry Chapin, and perhaps most of all, myself. She’s been with me singing Disney and Yiddish folk songs and Happy Birthday to You.

Without this guitar I never could have sung the hundreds of church services, including many for which I wrote original songs. We’ve been together at too many weddings too count – including my sister’s and my own – and at two funerals.  By now, I believe she could play Wedding Song or Since You’ve Asked by herself. And for three months once, we co-habited a 1973 Toyota.

Speaking of original songs, this guitar has seen the noodling and searching that resulted in almost all the songs I’ve written - most of which I lost years ago when a freshly ex-girlfriend decided to treat herself to a bonfire, using my notebooks as kindling.

She was with me the time that I swear my Aunt Suzy’s spirit helped me write a song for a wedding mass in the last possible twenty minutes and the time Vala and I went through dozens of spur-of-the-moment wildly inappropriate verses of Lazy Bones, neither willing to be the first to give up. Yes, yes, Vala won, what of it?

I haven’t played my guitar as much as I should have while Mary and I raised our daughters, and not really at all since I smashed my hand a few years ago. It turns out that breaking the head off a metacarpal and dislocating all the major knuckles in one hand does not enhance one’s fingering chops.  She sat patiently in her case in the corner of the office and occasionally I’d take her out and force my creaky digits through a few rounds. But it was never very satisfying for either of us.

Then while I was giving one of my daughters a lesson recently, I realized the pick guard was pulling up and knew it was time to make a decision. Fix her or sell her. We could use the money from a sale – this is an original Martin D-18, after all – and I was feeling that I needed to take one for the family finances.

Mary made the decision. For my birthday, she told me to take my beloved friend to a really good luthier and have her given some TLC. I didn’t take much convincing. And now, it’s almost time to bring her home and I have to say I can’t stop thinking about the big moment.

There won’t be any fireworks and this is not going to be a Chet Atkins moment. I’m not that great a player. Truth be told, I’m not nearly the player she deserves. But I can’t wait to get reacquainted. After all, she’s my guitar.