I’m cured, now…I don’t go into pawn shops very often, so I’m not tempted…but it was a constant activity a bunch of years ago.
I wasn’t going to mess up our finances to do it….but if I found something that I knew might be “flippable” at some point….something that’s worth some money….something that I could play and decide to never let go of….but that I might be able to turn a tidy profit if I ever decided that I could let go of it and sell it….well, I just might buy the guitar.
That’s the situation in a nutshell.
When I was working at the book store….back when finances were really tight and we didn’t have a lot of extra money….one of these guitars came in and went out on the racks to be sold.
It’s a Gibson ES295…..a pretty cool old archtop that is probably worth something.
(The one in the pawn shop was old and had a crazed finish….and no “Scotty Moore” signature. I think the picture here is of one of the reissues that Gibson put out….that sells new for 11,000 dollars. You have to get a reissue to get Scotty Moore’s signature….)
I never researched its value after I did what I did.
What’s the point? It’s just water under the bridge….after I did what I did.
I knew all the guys who worked there….at the pawn shop….and they put a hold on the guitar for me.
300.00 was a steal on this guitar….but 300.00 was a lot of money….so I put a hold on it so I could decide what to do.
300.00 really was a lot of money back then.
I didn’t need to be spending a bunch of money on a guitar that I didn’t need.
Later in the evening, after I’d been working at the bookstore for a couple of hours, this big, bearded guy came in with a bunch of his rocker friends and stopped at the counter.
“Are you Peter?” he said.
“Yeah”
“They told me over at the pawn shop that you worked here. I want to buy that guitar that you put a hold on. If I gave you $100.00, would you tell them that you didn’t want to hold it anymore? Could you call them and tell them that?”
I’d never had a situation like that come up….but I’d never put a hold on a guitar that we really couldn’t afford…but that was probably worth a couple of thousand dollars….probably more.
“Yeah, I could do that….” I said.
So….he gave me the 100.00 so that he could buy a guitar that I didn’t own….and went over and bought this old guitar….and I went home a little richer just for walking into a pawn shop and asking them to hold a guitar that I knew was worth a lot of money.
That was kind of a funny experience.
That was a pretty cool guitar.
I have a bunch of cool guitars that I can’t really play.
I’ve written before about how I think about “away” a lot.
I don’t know how or why that started….the feeling that somewhere else would be more complete or better, a place to really bloom, a springboard….a landing pad for all of my big dreams.
I don’t know how that started.
When you love to travel….but find it (or make it….maybe I just make it…) hard to travel….you imagine that “away” holds something that the place you find yourself right now can’t give you.
But….if I looked at this flower….and didn’t know that it was a picture my daughter took in Idaho….I might imagine that it was taken in our back yard.
Where I am and where I think I need to be aren’t all that far apart.
I listen to books in the car while I’m driving the mail around….and some of them are about what I think the authors called “metaphysics”.
I don’t understand metaphysics….but the thought that we’re all connected at a cellular level is kind of encouraging.
If that’s true….if the idea that we all share some unseen connection….some spiritual connection or molecular affiliation or ….something….then….I can’t imagine a place that I haven’t been on some level….already.
What someone breathes out in China…..I breathe in eventually in North Carolina.
No one sees any connection to anyone else when they’re rioting in the streets….or shooting each other down because we just never can understand each other.
It would probably blow our minds to understand just how connected to each other we really are.
I’ve heard that Hell is separation from God.
Maybe “Hell on Earth” is never knowing that we share a connection to each other?
Maybe Hell is just separation….period?
Maybe it’s just pretty early in the morning here.
Where I find myself in the moment isn’t the only place I am….or will be.
That would be pretty presumptuous of me to think that.
I could probably speak for about 43% of them at best.
Ladies are mysterious.
And anyway….I’m a dude.
What do dudes know about “lady stuff”?
I’m kidding, of course, about knowing any secrets. I really don’t know any secret stuff….lady stuff or otherwise.
I love the way this lady writes.
I don’t know if there are a whole lot of people who write about “real stuff” as well as she does.
None of the things she writes about are “secrets”….but she illuminates something that a lot of people never get a chance to express as eloquently.
Take this song, for example….
“stealing kisses” Lori McKenna
You’d have to have begun your career after you’d been married for a while….and had 3 children….and had done some living…to be able to write a song like that.
“one man” Lori McKenna
There are a lot of good performers in the world.
I’m easily impressed by a little bit of passion and some musical skill.
I can go into most places that have live music and think, “Man! He’s really good” or “She’s really good!” but it’s always the writing that separates the “really good” from the “really good” for me.
I think that Lori McKenna is really good.
Here’s a song from her 2013 album, Massachusetts.
“how romantic is that?” Lori McKenna
We need more music that’s “grown up” music….music that maybe doesn’t chart really high or anything, but is true and says something that means something.
I think that there’s still enough room in this crowded world for something true.
Overblown and really “pop”….it wasn’t really my style.
She can put on a good show, though.
Now she has a new project with songwriter Dallas Green called You plus Me.
Here’s a song from their first and (so far) only album….
“From a Closet in Norway (Oslo Blues)” You plus Me
It’s a good thing to get a chance to see a talented artist in a new light.
I don’t think I would have given her music a second thought if she hadn’t released this quiet project with Dallas Green.
I think that it caught a lot of people unawares….I hear people on some of the singer-songwriter type stations that I like to listen to commenting on what a surprise this album is….
Here’s another song from the album….
“gently” You plus Me
and…..one more….the title track from the album.
You + Me…Alecia Moore and Dallas Green…..the album is titled “Rose Ave.” and was written and recorded in a single week.
They’re a talented duo with a history of friendship….good music.
My little boy does the majority of the YouTube watching at my house.
Here’s a video that was “recommended” for me on my account.
I never pay too much attention to what YouTube recommends for me.
Most of the recommendations only look like they’re for me, anyway.
It all kind of bleeds together at my house….everybody’s a part of me.
It’s “our space”….even if my guitars and books and music and electronic equipment and….(what else?) kind of monopolizes it.
I have a lot of stuff….gathered up little pile by little pile over the years, I have accumulated.
I do think that a single well placed Lego block….discovered on a smooth floor on a dark morning…makes a bigger immediate impression than piles and piles of grown-up stuff arranged with some loose precision on sagging and overloaded bookshelves.
A Lego block will wake you up with its sharp corners.
Little things have a great deal of power, sometimes.
And these little guys can really fill up a space.
We watched the first two Star Wars movies….actually the fourth and the fifth movies….but the first two that came out back in the 70’s.
Talking about “the force”….always, the “force”.
If I was Yoda, I’d say something cryptic when I saw these kids running around….the big kids, too…..something cryptic like, “Force be strong in young ones….young ones’ force is strong….yes, strong.”
I’m not Yoda. I don’t know how to talk like a wrinkled up old gnome thing.
I’m not a wrinkled up gnome.
These kids can fill up a space.
Yowza, yowza….filling up a space with little kid force.
They probably think that I take up a lot of space.
That would make sense that they’d think that, too.
When you’re a child, I don’t think that you spend a lot of time pondering.
You may ponder logistics….like how to get “up there”….where the cookies/toys/large and dangerous knives…..are….but you don’t reminisce….or regret….or worry about the past or the future.
You don’t have much “past” to worry about.
The “past” isn’t part of your repertoire yet…and you can’t read a clock.
You don’t look back in anger.
You live in the moment.
At least, that’s the way I remember it.
It’s early and I just listened to this James Taylor song again and…..
I’m realizing that it might be smart to approach life like a child sometimes.
That “look back in anger” thought isn’t one that I personally visit too often. I’m not angry about anything. Confused, maybe….but not really angry about anything that I can think of.
I don’t have a wealth of regret.
That’s not where my wealth is.
There’s no value in the time I spend pondering things that I can’t change….now that I am years away from them.
It doesn’t do anything for me.
I know that.
Sometimes, though, I can’t help myself. What can I say? I’m a ponderous person.
I watch these kids and everything’s an immediate need.
They are pretty upfront about what they want….right when they want it.
They don’t hold back.
Most of the time that’s good…but sometimes, it gets bad…..fast.
I don’t know how to handle the “fast and bad” part consistently well, though.
I haven’t tried saying things like, “NO….think about it. Remember that time you pitched the fit in the Transformer section at Walmart and we had to carry you out of the store…..kicking and screaming?That was horrible. I will never be able to forgive you for that and I realize that that is who you are. You are a kicker….and a screamer….and a greedy, little toy mongering boy who will never be anything else. I don’t think that I’ll get over this….ever.”
That would suck to say something like that.
What kid deserves to be pigeonholed before they even get a chance to learn “how to be”?
Not any that I know.
There’s a big difference between “that disappointed me” and “you are a disappointment to me”.
And there is a big ditch that’s hard to get over between what I thought I’d be….and what I am.
That’s what it means to be a grown-up, maybe.
You see the ditch everyday…..and turn around and walk the other way.
You don’t stand at the edge and moan about the unreachable “other side”.
Right?
Maybe you just say, “I never wanted to go there, anyway.”
You put on a brave face and pretend that whatever happens to you or around you is part of the wheel you put in motion….something that you orchestrated….part of your “life plan”.
And you hope that you don’t kill anyone when you lose control and hurtle into the ditch.
It’s not good to figure out what “cruise control” is after you’ve rolled the travel trailer ,either.
That’s pretty darn dramatic.
Life’s pretty darn dramatic.
Maybe it’s better to just live like a kid….eat what you want and find all the toys under the couch….and play….play…play.
That’s simple enough for today….let tomorrow take care of itself.
