Second-hand Memories

     It took some time for the impact to sink in after I broke the guitar.  First we both had to have a mutual fit of anger, blaming one another, the object that fell on it, and then ourselves.  We were loading gear into our car for a gig at the Eagles and I bumped a heavy music stand which fell on the D18S Martin guitar cracking and denting its curved side.  At first I wanted to ignore it, while we finished the job, then with dread I looked at the head-stock and saw it was the beloved old acoustic Martin.  I said, "I didn't break your old Martin, did I?"  Steve picked it up, and showed it to me, saying, "You sure did.  It's useless now.  I'll have to throw it away."  And then in a fury I began to hurl invectives at his music stand, threatening to smash it to bits.

The guitar is burdened with second-hand memories.  We all hoard our second-hand memories and protect them along with our most valued possessions.  Whether true or not, we religiously believe in them because they came to us early in life from unimpeachable sources.  Mother, father, husband, and in-laws wouldn't lie to us about such things.  Much like the stories on the graveyard totem poles in Kitwancool, British Columbia, they're not necessarily fit for the ears of the general public and are sometimes embarrassing as well as unsavory.  So it is with the guitar; you'll hear only part of this story.  But that guitar will be thrown out over my dead body.  And when my tears began finally to fall I wondered why I was the one crying and not Steve.  And when he saw my anguish he wondered why he was the one who felt guilty for the incident.  In truth we were both to blame.  He shouldn't have left the guitar out of its case in that crowded little corner of the garage and I shouldn't have bumped the music stand.  We both quickly recovered from our anger and decided to keep the guitar.  We'll decide what to do with it later.

   

So why in the world should I be crying, I wondered.  The memories were from stories told over and over again both by Steve and by his mom about the guitar.  They’re not my memories and it’s only a guitar; not even one Steve plays anymore.  Then I had a flashback of my mother’s second-hand memories that brought tears to her.   One day, two years after my dad died, she watched and wept while the house my grandfather grew up in burned down.  My great-grandparents were among the two founding families of the town, and this was the last remaining house from the original town-site of Dartford.  It had been occupied by renters and had been in pretty run-down condition as I recalled from my adolescence.  So I had very little attachment to it, not having shared as many second-hand memories of that house as Mom had absorbed so deeply in her soul and her consciousness.  Now I could understand her tears as she thought about the work put into the house by the hands of the Dutch immigrants before they raised their nine children in it.

The guitar was purchased in 1971, a few months before I met Steve.  He was in recovery from his military service that summer, and his mother was somewhat perplexed by his behavior.  She told me he was not showing a lot of interest in finding a career or in much of anything.  He had come home from Germany having left a guitar behind though and that seemed to be his only interest.  She did have considerable concern for his mental state after serving a tour of Viet Nam.  So for his birthday she set out to buy the best guitar she could find.  Someone told her the Martin Company made the best and that she could find them in Seattle from a dealer named Phil Tafoya down on Rainier Avenue, quite a distance from her home in Arlington.  So she went there and in her own inimitable manner made an impression on him as he also did on her; I’m sure she told him all about Steve’s need for this very guitar and I’m sure he convinced her it was the only one for him.  Phil Tafoya was famous for decades among guitarists as having the only dealership in Seattle authorized to service the warantee on Martin Guitars.  

Now comes the part of the story most cherished.  On July 28^th Steve regarded the big case in front of him with interest and pleasure.  He opened it and thought “how wonderful; I’ve got a nice new guitar.”  Then he picked it up, held it in his arms, and strummed it.  The most stunningly resonant sound he’d ever heard from a guitar came out of it and in that instant he knew his mom had chosen a very fine, expensive guitar.  And so began a love affair that was in full-swing when I met Steve.  On the evening I invited him to my dorm room at The Evergreen State College he serenaded me with songs he’d written on it.  I was smitten.  As our relationship blossomed I had many occasions on which to wonder whose affections came first with Steve, mine or the guitar’s.  Eleanor had chosen the best therapy Steve ever found in his recovery from his years in the Army and it was that Martin D18S with a classical neck.  Eventually we decided it was too expensive to risk taking out on gigs so it was replaced with a Washburn, and then with a Garrison which he now uses in acoustic settings.  Like violins, acoustic guitars gain value and resonance with age so it’s still a fine guitar though the neck isn’t as comfortable to play on as his more recent guitars.  I think that guitar can be fixed.