I love guitars. I love the creation of music. I love to entertain. I love the arts. I love being a musician…
When I was in high school, and all my friends took wood shop, metal shop, or auto shop, I was in chorus, art classes, drama class, and took honors poetry classes. Everything I studied or attempted to become was all leading me down one path…The one of a musician/artist. That’s all I ever wanted to be from about 12 years old on. I never got into fixing things with my hands, or repairing automobiles. I always got more girls with music than with the knowledge of how pistons worked.
Now granted, when one of my brothers-in-law calls and talks about how he fixed his wife's transmission by loading a valve chassis, near the axel holder, with a disassembled emissions system, and how he made his 62 Mustang cherry, not only am I lost, but as disinterested as one could possibly be. Blah, blah freaking blah! I usually follow that up with what I had to do with a truss rod earlier in the day and how swapping some stock pickups with a set of Screamin’ Demons in a friends’ guitar made a great difference, or how I feel about locking nuts versus locking tuners. Then they’ll ask me what would be the first thing I did if my car wouldn’t start, and I ask them how many sharps or flats in the key of “D”? The answer of course to their question I tell them is to call somebody out, because they pay people to do that sort of work, and the answer to mine is 2 sharps!
My wife used to see guitars as an annoyance years ago, something she just didn’t understand. So I’d bring home a guitar, and excitedly show her the gorgeous flame on the top and how it pretty the grain looked with a trans black thrown on it. I would talk about how it sounded and felt, the profile of the neck, and all she saw was a black guitar. I never understood how someone couldn’t fall madly in love with a guitar…
Hundreds and hundreds of guitars passed through my doors over the years. Many of which I kept for long periods, and others I sold at a profit. I would excitedly come home with a tobacco burst and show it to my wife, yet all she’d see was a guitar. This went on for years and I just accepted the fact that my wife was not interested. One day I came home with the Peavey EVH Wolfgang arch top in the coveted cherry sunburst. I knew she wouldn’t care but I went through the ritual of showing it to her. I remember this like it was yesterday. She had just finished up some dishes, and we lived in a tiny 2 bedroom apartment. We only had 2 children at the time, both of which were in bed asleep. I walked through the kitchen doorway with the guitar and asked her what she thought. She turned to me and said, “That’s a very nice cherry sunburst on that guitar, I like that a lot.” My jaw dropped, and I realized why I loved her so much. She truly had made an effort for me.
Now I told you that story as a setup to this one…
A week or two later she was cleaning in what was our dining room, but was actually more of a music den than anything. I had my guitars displayed on the wall and in stands all behind childproof fencing across half the room. One of the guitars I had was a custom made one of a kind double neck, which was built for an Ibanez endorsee, who happened to be a friend of mine. I was awaiting a case I had ordered for it, because my friend had used a flight case for it which he kept when he I bought it. What happened next sort of played out in slow motion. My wife, on her tiptoes was reaching way up top on a shelf to grab a portable radio. She managed to knock it over and it fell down right towards my prized double neck. She stuck her leg out to divert the falling radio from hitting anything. It struck her leg and immediately tore a 2 inch gash in her leg which of course started bleeding. It bounced off her leg, into the guitar, and took a 2 inch chunk out of it. I stood there for only a half second, but it felt like an eternity, and I did the only thing I could do in that instance…
I lovingly ran forward, shoving my wife and her bloody leg out of the way, screaming ‘My guitar, my guitar!” Reaching the guitar, picking it up, inspecting the damage, I realized what I had done and turned to my bloody wife, in pain, on the floor, and asked if she was okay? The damage had already been done. She didn’t talk to me at all for about 2 weeks, and very little for a month after that. I was emotionally crushed by the fact that my guitar had gotten damaged, and all she cared about was her damn bloody leg, which I might add healed very nicely. That was 8 ½ years, and 2 more children ago.
I love guitars. I love the creation of music. I love to entertain. I love the arts. I love being a musician…I also love my wife!!
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