One Answer to Cynicism

Dear Rose,

Word has gotten around about your desire to do some guitar playing.
Well, you will need a guitar, hence my little brown friend.

I found him for sale in a parking lot at a Grateful Dead show in Atlanta
around 1987. I had flown into Atlanta for the shows (there were two) and I
was desperate for a guitar so as to join in on the parking lot jamming that
was a trademark event at all Dead show parking lots.

I bought him from a New York Deadhead who needed money for gas to
get home. His history before then is a mystery, but being found in a Dead
show parking lot helps to give the guitar great MoJo.

He hasn't been doing much lately, so I cleaned him up and strung him
with very light strings. Still, your finger tips will get a little sore until you
build up some callouses.

He's not a particularly "great" guitar, but he's friendly and eager to be
used. I would move up to medium lights as soon as your fingers can take it
as he won't sound his best with the light set I put on him.

I'm sure he'll be a good guitar to learn on. He is modest and earnest.
(something we could never say about an electric guitar)

He will need to come back home one day, but only after you've tired of
him or have upgraded to a better axe. When you are done with him, just
leave him leaning up somewhere in the front of the shop and I'll see him
and bring him home.

You might want a tuning fork, the little music shop near your shop will
have one and they can show you how to tune with one.

Have fun and don't worry about bumps and scratches.

Enjoy!

Anonymous

P.S.His name is Harvey, like the big white rabbit. (I think he was a Pooka
before becoming a guitar or he may still be a Pooka pretending to be a
guitar. If you're not sure what a Pooka is, rent the old Jimmy Stewart movie,
"Harvey")

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The above letter was taped to a guitar in the office of the restaurant that I worked at for 5 years.
I'm fairly positive I know who the person is behind the awesomeness. One day I was working and moody, and a musician asked me what was wrong. I wanted a guitar, but I told him I'd never be able to afford one. That was about five months before this generous deed. I knew his wife as well. Both very unpretentious, beautiful souls in an environment of snobbery and pretense (Annapolis is the Yacht capital of the country, if not the world.)

After this gift, I never saw either the musician or his wife again. He wanted nothing from me at all. Just to help make me a happier person. The following day I posted a handwritten thank you note on the cafe door with a rose. It stormed that day, and I found my gushing thanks you letter near a storm drain, soaked and illegible.

The timing of this anonymous guitar was divine. There are some things that are too personal (or controversial) even for this blog. But it gave me such hope, when I was in the ninth circle of hell. This man will never know how much that meant to me, and that is the only sad aspect to this story.