Note: This is - Old Shit First posted in December of 2005. I was telling a guy at work today about how I aquired my current acoustic guitar and that prompted me to repost this story today w/ a couple of gramatical tweaks.
Guitar Stories................
I've been playing guitar for about 34 years now. Sounds like a long time and I guess it is. Now that I think of it, I ought to be much better than I am after all that time. But I never really wanted to be a "Guitar God" or anything. I started playing mainly to pick up girls.
Yeah, big surprise that one. I had a buddy who was as ugly as Fidos Ass, but he picked up the girls because he could halfass play guitar. I figured if that ugly mutt could do that and I'm only half as ugly as him............ Yeah, a plan was formed and I went out and got a cheap Epiphone acoustic box.
I had played guitar for about 6 months when I was 13, but that shit was a lot like work and I was so Damned ADD (Attention Defecit Disorder) I just couldn't do it and being forced to practice made me just wanna break stuff. Mom got tired of fighting about it and that was that for 5-6 years.
I found that I really liked to play, once I got going. I didn't pick up any girls but that was ok too. I played the shit out of that cheap ass Epiphone for several years. The neck got loose and had a big bow in it, but I kept right on with it. I finally acquired a newer box this way.........
I was working a construction job in Iowa and was in the hotel bar getting good and drunk one night with the foreman and his beautiful wife Alice. In walks this big dude playing a nice guitar, rather poorly. He looked kinda like Hank Williams Jr, but had even less talent. He said, "Call me Otis". So we did. We sat there awhile and proceeded to get more drunk and finally went up to Otis' room to burn some rope I happened to have with me.
Like I said, Otis was a big fella. But Otis was a lightweight. John, the foreman, and I were pretty close to Olympic class drinkers at that time & Otis was not up to the task of trying to keep up with us. That would've been ok, but the more he drank, the more he kept trying to hit on Alice.
Remember Alice?
Bad move.
John told Otis to keep his hands to himself ......... Twice. Once more than most guys would've and I thought that was pretty nice of him. Twice just wasn't good enough though.
Otis Put his hand on Alices' leg again and John quietly got up and excused himself. I didn't know what he had in mind, but I knew it wasn't gonna be good for ol' Otis.
I think subconsciously, Otis must have known it too. His lack of beer drinking KungFu, coupled with the rope we'd burned, made his belly decide that it was a good time to do a crash evacuation maneuver of all contaminants. He bolted to the bathroom and started puking his guts out. Alice and I started getting ourselves ready to go when John came back.
With a tire iron.
And hostile intent.
John was NOT a fella to get riled up. He had every intention of beating Otis to a friggin' pulp and only Otis' lightweight constitution had saved him so far. With some difficulty, Alice and I kept him from beating in the door to get at Otis and killing him. To this day I believe we saved the life of that dumbass.
John was in a cold fury and started looking all around for something to vent on. And saw that nice guitar sitting against the wall. Up came the tire iron........ and I snatched it right out of his hand from behind. And it was a good thing I had it too. He whipped around with a look that flat scared the shit out of me. I told him not to smash up a perfectly good guitar just because it's owner was an asshole.
He snatched that guitar up and was getting ready to smash it into the wall when Alice said she wanted it. Alice didn't have any desire to own a guitar, but she was smart enough to know that a guitar smashing spree at 2 o'clock in the morning would just about guarantee us all going to jail.
John handed it to her and that was that. We all left to the sound of Otis blowing chunks in the crapper.
A
s we split up at our rooms, Alice handed me the guitar and said, "Here, I don't want this piece of shit. You take it."
I've had it ever since. The statute of limitations for that crime ran out about 1984, so I guess I can tell the story now. It's been a good friend and companion through many adventures. But it's never been as good a friend to me as it was to Otis.
It saved his life.
