A Legacy Project

He brought it to school in a paper bag. I paid him $12. It was an acoustic guitar with a reddish sunburst finish. I don’t think Eddie Maurer ever played it. Or anyone else, for that matter, because the distance between the strings and the neck of the guitar was about a quarter inch and that meant unimaginable pain. 

The Beatles had arrived on the shores of the United States by then, flooding the airwaves with their music. In the magazine stand at Pat’s Food Center, across the street from our house, there were thick, glossy magazines with photographs of them playing their instruments, smoking cigarettes, eating lunch, fixing their Beatle hair-do, pulling on their Beatle boots, buttoning their collarless jackets, looking into the camera and inviting you to entertain all manner of fantasy–such as one day I would be able to play one of their songs. WKNX a.m. radio played “I Want to Hold Your Hand” and “I Saw Her Standing There” on fifteen minute intervals and advertised giveaways: If you were the fifth caller into the station they would send you a free book of Beatle lore, starting . . .  NOW! I called a few times. There was no answer. 

Using a how-to-play-guitar book I bought at Whitehead Music in Saginaw, I began to learn how to play chords on that hellish guitar I’d bought. G chord was necessary, but painful, owing to the fact that it required holding the high E string to the third fret with your pinkie finger. It was like applying pressure to the edge of a sharp knife. F chord was impossible. The E chord was a little easier. I strummed E major, lifted my index finger and strummed E minor. It came as a minor revelation, the sound, the change, the mood. 

One day my dad came home from work and I was sitting on the couch “practicing,” which meant wildly strumming Emaj, Emin, Emaj, Emin, Emaj, Emin, and he was trying to tell my mother something. “Will you STOP THAT!” he shouted.

Finally someone, a knowledgeable 8th grader, told me it was easier to learn on an electric guitar. When he saw the guitar I was learning on, he shook his head. “That’s a piece of junk.” 

Whiteheads had electric. I bought a shiny blue Kent guitar with two pickups and a little amplifier to go with it. “I Wanna Hold Your Hand” was in the key of G. On my Kent I could play that chord.