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Dad's Old Guitar.
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For years I've tried to learn guitar on and off. I never could get past the beginner stage, basic cords and such. Most complicated thing I ever accomplished was teaching myself the acoustic intro to Love Song off Tesla's Five Man Acoustic Jam record. I just don't have the fingers for it nor the rhythm. I can hear the song in my head, see the notes dancing through my mind, but my fingers just don't translate it. They are mute.
From time to time I pick up my father's Gibson, the '54 ES175D that I now own, and strum it for a bit. I can see it's imperfections and I know the history of them all. Dad told me of each and every one and how they happened. The instrument was a roadmap of his life. I can see the small chip in the lacquer on the headstock and I know it happened in a barfight one night in the mid to late sixties. The deep grooves in the rosewood fretboard where he frequented his favorite chords. I know that A minor rings more true on it than does a regular A. It makes a slight buzz because the frets are grooved and worn. (Since he showed me that it now bothers me as much as it did him and I catch myself going to A minor when running cords, even on other guitars I've picked up.) I can see where his thumb rubbed through the finish down into the wood across the top of the neck from what he used to call "Smearing" the top string. I see all of this and remember him.
It doesn't sing anymore in my hands and it bothers me. The shame makes me put it away. He told me as a child that if I was ever to truly own the guitar I had to be able to play it. I reckon I don't really own it then. I feel like I'm just the caretaker until it finds it's future rightful owner.
It's sits in a closet closed up in it's original case out of sight, out of mind. When I see it, I see him with it in his arms after work. Cold beer on the table in front of him, unfiltered Camel in the ashtray trailing smoke into the air in a timeless blue whisper, his Shell station work shirt covered in grease, grime, and sweat. Playing the Beatles, rockabilly, Stones, Old-School country, and when times where hard (which was entirely too often), the blues. Or him sitting at the foot of my bed as I was going to sleep playing and singing "White Rabbit." It's a timeless image of my father burned into my memory with a torch. And it hurts too much to remember, so I hide the old girl away. I hide it because I'm not worthy to have her. I haven't earned the right. Maybe someday, but not now. Probably not ever.
I hope my nephew someday will be able to play it when he grows up. He never met his grandfather so it most likely won't mean shit to him. It'll just be some damned old antique worth a new car or somesuch to him and nothing more. I have a feeling I will most likely donate it to a music museum in Nashville or Memphis when I'm an old man. Sometimes I wonder if it will ever sing again.
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