Folk Stories

Today my mother, the dental hygientist, cleaned my teeth. In order to kill some time while the fluoride settled into my enamel, I decided to stop by the local antique shop. I love antique shops, but this one stands heads-and-tails above the others I've stopped in, because it has a guy selling classic guitars next door. I've been meaning to do this since I came back home to Allegan and I leave tomorrow morning, so it was about time I went there. I left my acoustic in Grand Rapids and though I've been enjoying my Malden Karma and the jazzy tone of my Mesa Boogie F-30, I truly need to be folksy.

I love the sound of wood, string, and fingers playing off each other. There are times when you're playing that perfect acoustic guitar and you feel as though every note you play leaves the guitar swelling to harmonize with all the other musical ideas and flaws in your own soul. It's a simple thing. I bought of one of those guitars from this guy last year and it's always at hand.

I went in and chatted with John and fiddled with his guitars for about two hours today. He has a wall of vintage guitars that it seems there aren't two from the same decade and style. He likes the odd guitars and especially likes to take broken ones and have them restored. Some of these guitars are beautiful and yet he found them in shards. He said he could sell them for three times what they're worth, but he doesn't because he knows that someone was meant to come in and buy those guitars. Each one of those guitars is praying for someone to take them home, show them love, and make beautiful music. It sounds like a romantic comedy, but only if you don't play guitar.

John's an eclectic fellow and he has about as many stories as his guitars do. I noticed he had a few ethnic instruments including a couple bouzikis which is an instrument used in Celtic and Greek music that I've been meaning to get my hands on for a while. John was happy to oblige. After I had my fun for a while, I handed it over to him telling him I'd love to hear him play a bit. He played a few jigs and reels that would make anyone raise a pint of Guinness and stomp their foot. Getting to know him a little more, he told me about his stories as a UN soldier and his delight in sharing in an other's culture (except for the French because they're "the most inhospitable bastards" one could ever meet "especially if they knew you were American"). He told me about Irish pub songs, German cooking, and a particularly charming episode where he got a a bunch of Welsh guys to sing a sweet song in Crymraeg in the middle of a crowded farmer's market.

He told me that in 1972 he lost feeling in his left hand, and thusly lost the ability to play guitar. He said there was a point where he had this very (beautiful) bouzouki over his head ready to crack it into splinters and firewood. Today he doesn't claim to play well, but every note of that Irish jigs sounded positively blessed to me.

You can see in his humble eyes and jolly bearded grin that he's a man who's overcome that frustration and found a peaceful place in the world where grace comes rushing from strummed strings and the mouths of a few laughing friends. That's a good place to be.

. . .

Tübingen Wörter
Wörter:
I. der Zusammenklang: Harmony (literally translated as "that which rings together.")
II. die Überlieferung: tradition or lore
Verben
I. etw. an jmdn. weitergeben (gab weiter, weitergegeben): to pass something down to someone
II. aufzeigen (zeigte auf, aufgezeigt): To demonstrate something