I forgot to mention that I actually did purchase an instrument before my parents gave me the Christmas present of a lifetime. In the summer between 5th and 6th grades I had come across an acoustic guitar in the Khun’s Department Store in Sweetwater. The price was $21. I wanted it and lobbied my mom to no avail. “Save for it,” she said. I worried. Would it still be there if I waited? I went to work. I first robbed my piggy bank (which was actually a tall, red, plastic replica of a turn of the century outdoor lamp). Five bucks (I was never much of a saver). I mowed the lawns and clipped hedges. Three bucks. I collected empty bottles (my aunts contributed their empties to my cause) and sold them to the local grocery store (that’s how kids made money then). Around five dollars. My parents pitched in the rest (I’m sure I promised to work it off but probably never did), and I bought it as soon as I could.
I’d already purchased a Mel Bay chord book. “This is the hand,” a caption under the drawing of a hand announced. No shit, Mel. I figured that much, but nothing else. “Gotta get that thing tuned,” my dad said. Oh, man, how am I ever gonna do that? “Take it down to the store and get the guy to do it for ya.” Great advice, dad. He was talking about the guy who owned the neighborhood store, who not only liked kids, but was also a crack musician. The guy could tear a guitar all to hell, and was also a better than average fiddle player. I stopped by the store with a banjo once, asking if he could play it. “No,” he said, “I can’t do nothing but claw it like Grandpa Jones.” Sounded like playing to me, but I was no expert. Anyway, he tuned my guitar and played a few riffs before I got away.
The guitar attempts did not go smoothly. I did learn a few chords, C, D, E, F, G, A, and B, all majors, but could not really play F or B cleanly. The strings really put a hurt on my fingers. Dad told me I needed to toughen up the fingertips and strengthen the digits themselves. He was right, but an additional problem existed, one neither of us had the experience to recognize: the bridge needed adjustment. Were I about to play slide it would have been one thing, but I don’t know if Paul Anderson could have lasted against those raised strings. I was off to a rocky start.
Not so long after getting the guitar I accidentally broke a string. Man, I didn’t know what to do. I was green about everything. There was no music store in town then, so I felt kind of stuck. I don’t remember how, but I discovered that for small musical needs the place to go was the drug store. Not only could a set of strings be bought, but even a single string could be purchased. I went all the way by buying a replacement, a new set of Black Diamond strings, and a set of nylon strings as backups. The store sold banjo and bass guitar strings, picks of all kinds (I bought several types of those), even straps. Even Hohner Marine Band harmonicas, like the blues guys played, were carried.
Unfortunately, I never solved the bridge problem, and so the guitar went into the back of my closet for another, or no other day. I’m not 100% sure of what happened to that guitar, but I believe I sold it to my cousin for five bucks. He never reported how the guitar worked for him.
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