Wednesday Guitar Blogging: A Boy and His Guitar

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August 16, 2006

Wednesday Guitar Blogging: A Boy and His Guitar

I still remember a conversation I had with my (late) father sometime in the Fall of 1979 (or was it 1978?). He wanted to know how serious I was with my interest in guitar. Dad was very practical when it came to money, and he wasn't going to buy something that I'd toss aside in a few months. Besides, we already had a piano, and I was doing okay (not great; never have been) with learning that.

But I wanted a guitar more than anything, and I told him as much. His old Fender Newporter acoustic was a little too big for me at the time, so he went with a student-sized model; a Kay, it only cost him 30 or 40 bucks, used, but it's a real guitar, not a toy. He gave me the guitar for Christmas that year. It was a big deal, because we kids were always surprised with our Christmas gifts -- none of this making a list and shoving it at your parents stuff -- but we drove to Phoenix that year to visit the maternal grandparents, and it had to ride in the station wagon with us, so of course I knew it was coming. I was beyond grateful.

I hadn't carted that guitar around with me after leaving the homeplace, but when Dad died a couple of years ago, I decided it was time to bring it on down to Tennessee. We had a baby on the way, which we thought was going to be a girl, and I had visions of "Olivia" starting her own musical journey someday.

Turns out we had a boy, and though things may change over time, as of now he seems to love guitar just as much as his daddy does. I'm calling myself the guitar's "guardian" (guitardian?) until he's old enough to handle it.