"Buy a cheap guitar", he told me, "I'll teach you how to play it." That was 1982 and my good friend Edgar Cruz (yes, THAT Edgar Cruz www.edgarcruz.com) has yet to teach me a single chord! I guess life got in the way; we move forward. I think I've owned about half a dozen acoustic guitars since that time, but I just bought another one today! I own Checkers already, and he's my number 1, but he's more or less for show as he's literally checkered black and white, and though he's an Eleca brand, he was purchased to basically make me smile when I look at him. I have picked him up and played around with him, but I've never taken him too seriously, he's my buddy and he realizes he's not going to be "the one" to make me sit myself down and go through my new "Guitar for Dummies" book that I bought after nearly 40 years of waiting on Edgar...a girl has just so much patience; mine is gone. (LOVE YOU, Edgar!)
Normally, when I buy a guitar I go to the pawnshop. For me, it's tantamount to going to the animal shelter to rescue a dog or cat. At the pawnshop, you find castaways, surrenders, and estate purchases that just didn't work out. I don't think you'll find anything that will be put down for food aggression, but you may find a friend with a broken neck, misaligned frets, popped strings, missing plates or worse. I hold each guitar to see if it speaks to me, and if it does I want to know everything I can about it to see if we're going to get along - - I've only found a few that were just a bit too wild for me bring back to my abode, but I have found them! Stella was a good guitar; she was handcrafted from a small town in Mexico, and when I bought her I knew she was worth much more than what I was being asked to pay for her. I took her to Guitar Center to be cleaned and restrung, the masters there told me just how valuable she was. I guess someone else found out how valuable she was too; she was stolen from my home when I was out on tour with my dog Faith. Stella was the only thing taken too. So sad.
Today I found Wally! Wally is named for William Wallace, the 13th Century Scottish knight who along with Andrew Moray, defeated the English at the Battle of Stirling Bridge. You remember Mel Gibson played the role in the movie Braveheart. With April being Scottish American Heritage Month (who knew?) I decided to buy myself a good guitar and name it after a famous and handsome Scotsman. Who knows if the real William Wallace was hot? Mel did him a big favor; boosted his ego, I'm sure. My Wally will be taught (along with me) what it means to be happy, played, befriended, and loved. My Wally did NOT come from a pawnshop, however; he was purchased from a home. That has never happened before. I've never simply answered a Craigslist ad for a guitar, but today that's what I did.
Yesterday I spent about 3 hours driving around looking for a new friend. I went to 7 different pawnshops close to me; I say close, they were within 6 or 7 miles of my home. I went to one right after the other, even calling the shops before I arrived to find out if they had anything. I ended up finally just throwing my hands up in the air because there wasn't a single six-string acoustic guitar near my house! I was going to have to drive about 20 miles to find one with a relatively good price; one that wasn't broken wasn't cheaply made, wasn't going to cost me more than my horse board! I do have my senses about me. I haven't learned to play yet, so I didn't want to put the money into a Gibson, Fender, Martin, or Takamine - - it was going to need to be foreign made guitar, as all or most American made instruments are pricey pricey and they just can't be found. I wanted one that was either 3/4 or full, nothing too fancy and he needed to be a he - - yes, guitars have genders.
Not finding a single guitar worth picking up at the shops I did the next best thing; I went to Craigslist, and you know, I may have even looked at Facebook Marketplace too. I think people got their stimulus checks and 34% of Oklahomans went out and bought acoustic guitars this week. I looked up "acoustic guitar" on Craigslist and there were three. One was $1000 price firm. One was black with rhinestones and a big rose right in the middle of it...so not a guy guitar, this was most most most definitely Rosey and she was a Spanish beauty probably made in China. She was also a no-go. Then there was Wally. Wally was not named of course, not until he was in my hands. He was in a small town just about 20 miles away from my house - - I knew it, I knew I was going to make a trip. He had been waiting for me and when I picked him up he was instantly smitten; just as smitten as I was.
The man who sold him to me, and only for $100 I may add, had purchased Wally from Guitar Center in 2017 and he was new, or at least he hadn't been purchased beforehand. I don't know when he was actually made, but he was in fact made in China as well. He's a Yamaha, and I guess I thought they were Japanese, but he has a certificate glued to his spine saying he's an FD10S and he was in fact, made in China. That's OK, he's an American now. He's mine. He'll stay mine. I don't think he'll be stolen or carried away; he's average, basic, normal, nothing too fancy, but sweet and concise. He came with a nylon bag, new strings, picks, a little stand, and even a cheap strap that will be soon replaced with an Armstrong tartan one for sure. Wally doesn't have a backstory, he doesn't even have an interesting front story either. The man bought him, played him maybe a dozen times over the next few weeks, and just put him back into his case and in a corner of the garage studio where he sat until the man decided to clean up the garage. When I asked him why he didn't play the guitar he said he's a drummer and he thought it would be cool to learn but never did. OK. I guess that makes sense. Checkers hasn't been played much and I'm not even a drummer.
I brought Wally into the bedroom to meet Checkers and they've been hanging out together today. I'll be sure and give Checkers a bit of attention as well when I do learn a chord or two, so as not to come off as being partial to Wally, but as I mentioned before, Checkers is really more for show and conversation - - he knows his role. He's OK with it too, but I can only imagine he'll still feel that he's lead guitar in the room. I don't want there to be any animosity before bedtime - - too much drama can lead to really crazy dreams you know. So that's it. This blog is just to introduce you to my new friend and let Edgar know he's officially off the hook -- but he still has to bless Wally and Checkers when I next see him, so I'll swing by wherever he's playing soon and let him test drive them both. He'll smile - - I'll smile, and that's all that really matters.
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