Rain is falling and the lightning flashes periodically.  Rumbles of thunder resound, sending the family dog under the storage shed seeking a hiding place.  I know that he has a good strong house, but for some reason, he isn’t reassured by the plastic structure with only two plastic flaps between him and the turmoil from the skies.  So, he cowers in the dirt under the shed.  Maybe he’s the smart one.

Like many of you, I’ve watched the video footage of the horrific earthquake in Japan over the last few days.  The one thought that I can’t shake is how exposed we are, in spite of our illusion of protection.  In the earthquake, strong buildings, the very places you would think you should run into when in danger, become death traps, with objects falling from shelves, pieces of the ceiling crashing down, even whole buildings collapsing on themselves.  Outside isn’t much better.  The resulting tsunami, huge waves caused by the earth’s movement, tosses cars around like toys, crushing buildings, battering bridges and skyscrapers alike, leaving in it’s path nothing but destruction and death.

A false sense of security.  How many times have we seen confidence shattered as the unsinkable, unbeatable, and invincible are swept away by circumstances and powers beyond our control?  Billions of dollars are lost as stock markets fall and money invested in “can’t miss” acquisitions turns out to be nothing more than speculation and fool’s gold.  A ship that can’t be sunk goes down on its maiden voyage, sunk by something that was unseen until moments before the impact.  The greatest military might in the world is defeated by an upstart country of 13 small colonies and virtually no trained military men.

We even put our trust in men and women who turn out to be frauds.  More than that, those who have proven to be trustworthy for years and years stumble and founder.  Marriages fail after twenty, thirty, even forty years, destroyed by unfaithfulness.  People we respect lose their moral compasses, pursuing paths completely inconsistent with their past and their verbal affirmations.  Our faith in humans is shaken again and again.

Am I preaching?  It would appear so, since the tenor of this post seems to be pointing out our misplaced trust in all the wrong things.  Man-made things, whether they be structures or temperaments, buildings or character traits, are all flawed in their framework.  The idea that a thing conceived and made by a broken creature can endure in the face of the power and testing of the Creator is ridiculous in its foundational principle.  As the power of the forces pitted against it are unleashed, the cracks and flaws in the design and construction will always be brought to light.

When we trust in the might of men, we trust in a shadow, a puff of smoke.  It is here today, gone into the ether tomorrow.  My mind can’t help but be directed to our national motto, printed on our coins since the middle of the nineteenth century.  Much maligned in recent years; possibly on the brink of extinction in our current course, it is, nonetheless, still the only sane course for fallen man.  “In God We Trust.”

Francis Scott Key penned the words in 1814, and we know them today as our National Anthem.  The words which inspired our national motto read:
“And this be our motto: ‘In God is our trust.’
And the Star Spangled Banner in triumph shall wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave.”

Congress, in 1864, in the midst of the Civil War, a terrifying period in our history, with more than ample cause to acknowledge the erroneousness of trust in man’s institutions, shortened the phrase from that powerful verse and had the words “In God We Trust” stamped on the two-cent coin for the first time in U.S. history.  I have the priviledge to possess one of these coins, and it never fails to move me powerfully when I hold it in my hand and think of that horrible time in our nation’s history, but also the simple faith of our leaders in an all powerful God, who values truth and justice above all of our petty desires.  The coin is worn and dirty, passed from hand to hand for a century and a half, with almost no monetary value, but the motto is still there, reminding that in spite of our shortcomings, our stupidity, and our arrogance; the wisdom, and strength, and love of our Creator trumps our weakness every time.  I don’t think I could part with it for any amount of money.

Had enough of the preaching?  Okay, I’m coming down from behind the pulpit in a moment.  Just one more reminder:  The psalmist knew whereof he spoke when he penned the words in Psalms 20:7.  “Some trust in chariots and horses.  We trust in the name of the Lord, our God.”

That said, I’m still headed indoors during this storm.  I do know enough to come in out of the rain…

“The illusion which exalts us is dearer to us than ten thousand truths.”
(Alexander Pushkin~ Russian Poet~1799-1837)

“But courage, child!  We are all between the paws of the true Aslan.”
(C.S. Lewis)

I stood in the pawn shop and bargained with the old man.  He had a story for every instrument I picked up, one of them acquired from the school-aged child of a  friend, another belonging originally to a great street musician who had played all over Kansas City for years, still another one coming to the shop because of a divorce.  The garrulous fellow needed to make a sale, so he kept talking, knowing that sooner or later the young man from the small town down south would find at least one instrument he couldn’t resist.  He was correct.

I’ve told you about my trips to other towns, searching for merchandise to resell.  I was on the road again, this time up to Kansas City, both in Missouri and Kansas.  I had exhausted the usual shops I knew of and was just driving aimlessly, when I happened upon the large, dilapidated building in the mostly deserted downtown area of Kansas City on the Kansas side of the border.  The man running the shop told me that the original owner had been his boss, but had died and the family had sold him the declining business.  He and his elderly wife, a thin, angular lady with a disapproving look in her eyes, ran the dumpy establishment, just biding their time until retirement.  As I talked with him, he invited me to stick around that evening to go to the casino with him and play the games of chance.  Evidently he was a regular at one of the “riverboats” north and east on the Missouri River and received some sort of recompense for recruiting new patrons for them.  I let him know that I wasn’t a gambler and turned the conversation back to the instruments.  It would only take a an hour or two to prove how wrong I was.

As we looked through the hundreds of instruments he had in the dimly lighted, ramshackle place, the customers started to pile up at the counter.  It was Saturday, the busiest day of the week for pawnbrokers, and the folks were waiting to pay the interest on their loans.  A few had items to hock, others wandered around, looking at items for sale.  The only other employee in the place was his harried wife, who did the best she could while he worked on making a sale to me.  It was obvious that her best wasn’t enough for the other customers, but he ignored them and her, pressing me to buy first one junky horn, then another.  Finally, he brought out his crown jewel, a battered tenor saxophone owned, he informed me, by a locally famous jazz player, who had lost the saxophone when he hit hard times and couldn’t pay the loan off.  As I looked at the instrument, the brand name and model number rang a bell.  Little did I know at that time that the bell they rang would awake the gambler in me.  It would be a losing hand.

I remembered the horn from legendary stories about the men who played it.  I was sure I had seen the sales figures in the thousands for it, so I wasn’t surprised when he quoted me a price of three thousand dollars.  Nor was I going to pay that price.  We bargained as the line grew longer at the counter, his wife calling him several times as the negotiations progressed.  Ignoring her, he pressed me to a final price.  Twenty-one hundred dollars, a deal if I had ever seen one!  This horn, the Mark Seven was worth more than twice the price!  As his wife screamed at him from the counter, I told him that I would take it!  I handed him the cash and walked out of the shop, ignoring the angry scowls, both from his wife and the neglected patrons in line.  I was going to make a lot of money on this purchase!  Nothing else mattered at that moment.

I’ve heard it many times; the odds are always stacked in the house’s favor, and this time was no exception.  As I drove south toward home, my mind on the transaction and the horn itself, I suddenly had a glimmer of an unsettling thought.  Mark Seven?  Was that the right model number?  Could it have been the Mark Six that was the Holy Grail of the saxophone market and not the Mark Seven?  With those questions in my mind, I found a telephone and called the Lovely Lady in the music store with my suspicion.  She confirmed the awful truth.  The horn I had just purchased for a huge amount of money was not worth anything close to what I had paid.  I was devastated.

I found myself wondering why I hadn’t just taken the old fellow up on his invitation to go to the casino on the river.  At least I wouldn’t have lost as much money as I did.  Missouri has a  law that only allows you to buy up to five hundred dollars worth of chips every two hours in a casino, giving you time to repent of your losses before throwing more money away.  I’m pretty sure I couldn’t have lost any more than the eight hundred dollars I eventually lost on that horn when I finally sold it.

Over the intervening years, I’ve had time to reconsider my original reaction.  I was angry at myself, believing that my irresponsible purchase was just as bad as throwing away money on a game of chance.  But, I see more clearly now that the difference is that I could take steps to insure that the uneducated expenditure of cash never was repeated in making a purchase.  When you’re a gambler, a real gambler, no amount of education will make you a winner.  Gamblers keep making the same mistake again and again, playing into the hands of the house.  Their mistake?  Walking into the casino with money in their pockets, believing that they will walk out with more than they had to start with.  Is there a chance that will happen?  Sure, a very small chance.  But, I guarantee the only sure bet you can make is the one you choose not to make.

When I walk into a shop with money in my pocket these days, I carry a safeguard against the ignorance that made me a gambler instead of a shopper that day in Kansas City.  I have a subscription to a Blue Book service which tells me instantly whether the instrument is the one I’m remembering and whether the price is a fair one or not. You see, I do learn from some of my mistakes.

No more gambling for me, thanks!  What’s that you say?  You’ve got an insurance policy to sell me?  Yeah right!  Like an earthquake will ever hit here…

“Gambling: The sure way of getting nothing for something.”
(Wilson Mizner~American playwright~ 1876-1933)

“…For by what a man is overcome, by this he is enslaved.”
(2 Peter 2:19~NAS)

The man walked in the front door and browsed around the music store.  After a period of time, he began to engage me in conversation.  He wasn’t a musician, but several in his family had been.  At one point in the conversation, he remarked, “My uncle plays the piano by ear.”  I couldn’t resist the opening and said, with a twinkle in my eye, “That’s nothing, my grandpa fiddled with his beard.”  Unfortunately, either his sense of humor wasn’t on the same wavelength with mine, or the double meaning just went over his head, so the conversation faltered and he left soon thereafter. 

I am a lover of jokes, more specifically of plays on words.  Frequently these are puns, at other times just a clever turn of a phrase, but I do tend to go a bit overboard with them.  Mealtimes at our house are a joy for me, pure torture for others at the table, since as a captive audience they must endure the best (worst?) of my repertoire.  I have enjoyed a good joke as long as I can remember, especially if I am the one telling it.  As a teenager, I was the bane of the existence of any number of teachers in school.  I’m not sure if I would have been called the class clown, but I loved the attention gained by being the jokester.  I still post a joke almost daily to my Facebook friends, either for their enjoyment or dismay.  To a punster, a groan is just as good as a guffaw, so I’m not sure it matters what the response is, as long as the jokes are read.

You would think that being a joke-lover would mean that I am basically a jolly person, but that’s not necessarily true.  Often a sense of humor can hide depression and sadness.  I wouldn’t describe myself as depressed, but I frequently have “down” periods and the jokes just keep coming.  I suppose a psychologist would say I was compensating.  I realized again today that there is something to this theory.  I had taken a little nap after supper and awoke to notice that the television was on one of these hoarding shows.  You know the ones I’m talking about;  the perfectly normal appearing folks who secretly have filled their homes with junk and even collectibles they cannot get rid of for anything.  I was struck by the honesty of one of the hoarders on the show.  She admitted that she did this to make up for being a failure in her own eyes.  She was successful at collecting a mountain of things, so the failures at other things; marriage, school, and parenting no longer loomed larger than life in her eyes.

Now, I’m not a hoarder of possessions.  If anything, I throw away too much, possibly for fear of becoming one.  I am a hoarder of attention, though.  It’s a common problem, wanting to be the center of attention.  It’s encouraged in our culture.  We push our children to perform, starting with the baby’s abilities we must demonstrate with shared pictures and phone calls.  It continues through all ages, children in pageants, in sports events, in dance and music recitals, and on and on.  We reward the exhibitionist mindset with publicity, monetary awards, and fame.  Is it any wonder that so many of our stars self-destruct just as spectacularly as they came to notoriety? 

Early in my life, a classmate (who later became an excellent teacher) helped me to understand my tendency to seek attention and approval.  I have never forgotten the lesson, even if I have not always heeded it.  We were in Mrs. Brunson’s third grade class and had a drawing assignment.  I have no idea what we were drawing, only that I was extremely proud of my creation.  Instead of waiting for someone to compliment it, I circulated through the class asking, “Isn’t that a crummy job of drawing?”  Fortunately, Susie was in one of the first groups I approached.  With a wisdom beyond her years, she replied,  “No Paul, I think you just want us to say how good it is; don’t you?”  I was crestfallen, realizing that a girl had seen right through me, but I certainly got the message.  Now, years later, I still recall her words frequently, and they have encouraged me to analyze my motivations in many situations.  Am I still an attention hound?  Yeah, I do tend to be, but there is a good bit of tempering of that penchant.  The most important change is the ability to simply do what I do without needing the strokes of adoring fans.  I don’t mind the “atta-boy” comments that come once in awhile (we all need a few of those), but they are no longer what determine my actions.

It doesn’t hurt any to have a full-time fan living in the same house.  I can always count on the Lovely Lady for applause and criticism, both of which make me a better person.  You should all be so lucky.

“Lighthouses don’t fire cannons to draw attention to their shining; they just shine.”
(Dwight L Moody~American evangelist~1837-1899)

“What a banker sighs for, the meanest clown may have – leisure and a quiet mind.”
(Henry David Thoreau~American essayist and poet~1817-1862)

I fidgeted as I sat under the suspicious stare of the bank vice-president.  I was only 24 years old and still believed that the world was mine to conquer, so I shrugged off the awkward feeling and set about to convince the keeper-of-the-treasury that my request was worth considering.  We wanted to buy a second car and needed less than a thousand dollars to make the purchase.  The problem was that the car was well over the limitation for age which the bank had set for car loans.  Put plainly, the 13-year old car couldn’t be financed.  I was aware of the restraint before I took my seat in the loan office, but I was prepared.  I had a sure-fire, can’t-miss offer to make the bank, an offer on which I was sure they would be happy to take me up.

After the scornful start to the interview however, I wasn’t sure.  I think it may have had something to do with my haircut…well, the lack thereof would be more to the point.  I was at a time in my young life when I believed that what a person looked like should have no bearing on his worth as a human being.  I still think that, but I understand that the packaging presents an image to those who must have some standard by which to determine the trust-worthiness or stability of their investments.  This is still true today, just as it was way back then. My mom would say it like this, “Don’t cut off your nose to spite your face.”  In other words, sometimes our individuality takes a backseat to expediency.  When I was young though, you couldn’t tell me anything, so the nearly shoulder-length hair was proudly in evidence.  Of course, I was new in town and had wooed and won one of the finest young ladies here, so there might have been a lingering resentment over that too.  Regardless, I was fighting an uphill battle at this point, so I pulled out my offer, which I knew he couldn’t refuse.

“You’ll take collateral, won’t you?” I asked.  “Of course, if you have something of value to put up, we’ll consider it,” came the doubtful answer.  I knew I had him!  “I have a six-month old Conn French Horn, worth fifteen hundred dollars.  It’s a Conn 8D, one of the top horns made today.”  It was over!  Now he had to give me the loan!

Oh, it was over all right!  The arrogant young executive laughed in my face.  “There’s no tin horn in the world worth fifteen hundred dollars!” he exclaimed.  “That’s not collateral.  Your request is denied.”  I walked out of that bank, disappointed and angry, never to do business with them again.

I have repeated that story more than a time or two over the last twenty years, dwelling on the man’s ignorance and conceit, as I concluded my story by telling of going to a competing bank in town and being given a loan on only my signature, with no collateral asked for.  I’ve paid many thousands of dollars in interest personally and professionally in the intervening time, money which the other bank could have added to their coffers if the loan officer had been willing to do a little research.  Now, I’m not saying that they have missed me at all, but I’d like to think that I’ve had the last laugh.  It’s my little illusion, so don’t spoil it for me, okay?

In fairness, I have made my share of similar missteps, in particular one a couple of years ago, when a fellow music retailer walked into my shop with a battered guitar case in his hand.  He asked me if I would sell the guitar for him on Ebay.  I opened the case and laughed.  “A Gibson Les Paul Junior!  That guitar never saw the day it was worth three hundred dollars.”  He looked at me in surprise and said, “I think you may be a little mistaken, Paul.  They’re going for a good bit more than that.”  I laughed a while longer and agreed to sell the instrument for whatever the bids came in at, promising him the balance after I took a predetermined commission.  I took pictures and started the auction, convinced that the pittance the 3/4-size student guitar would bring wouldn’t pay for my time to prepare the sale.  Nevertheless, he was a friend, so I dutifully fulfilled my promise to him.

Seven days later, I owed the man over four thousand dollars!  The market was significantly stronger for that little student guitar than I had ever considered.  I swallowed my pride and called him to give him the good news and had a little side-dish of crow.  As I did, my mind drifted back to that day in the bank and I realized that anyone can make uneducated decisions.  It’s especially nice when redemption is also an option, through no merit of your own.  Because of changes over the years, it’s no longer a possibility, but in retrospect, I might even have given that bank vice-president a second chance, realizing my own propensity for ignorant choices.

Oh, I sold that French Horn a couple of years ago, over 25 years after my rejection in the bank.  Selling price for the “tin horn”?  Fifteen hundred dollars.  It’s a small comfort, but it is nice to know that I’m not always wrong…

 “I have been Foolish and Deluded,” said he, “and I am a Bear of no Brain at All.”
(Winnie-the-Pooh)

“In the process of trial and error, our failed attempts are meant to destroy arrogance and provoke humility.”
(Jin Kwon~South Korean martial arts master)

 

We took a break from the Sunday evening catch-up session at the music store to grab a bite to eat.  As we sat ruminating (both physically and mentally), we decided to turn on the television.  The auction marathon was still running on one of the cable channels, so we watched the high drama of estimating and selling for a few moments.  This highly scripted “reality” television genre continues to multiply, expanding on the “Antiques Roadshow” phenomenon.

We watched as a gentleman carried in a box of items, most of it junk, and then drew out a pendant, which turned out to be a pencil in an artfully designed gold case, complete with diamonds and a ruby worked into the design.  As the story unfolded, appropriately timed and contrived to pique the viewers interest, we learned that it was made by a famous Russian jewelry maker.  At the conclusion of the show (after an annoyingly large number of commercials), the now very desirable bauble sold for something around twelve thousand dollars.  Of course, by this time we are jaded with hearing the stories, the original television series having repeated the pennies-spent to thousands-earned tale many times over.  Nevertheless, I am once more struck by the real story here; the narrative of ignorance and enlightenment.

It doesn’t always work the way the shows tell it.  Many of these treasures are sold and resold numerous times for a pittance, with neither the buyers nor the sellers recognizing the real value.  Frequently, this is because of the utilitarian mindset we have, merely recognizing the use we can gain from the item, but not perceiving the inherent value.  I can’t count the number of times I’ve heard a flea market patron remark, “Sixty dollars!  I’ve got one of those in the cupboard at home!”  Ultimately, as it turns out, it’s a good thing that most people still have those in their cupboards, since the rareness on the market is what drives up the price, but that’s not really the point.  The principle is that we don’t know the real value of what we have until we are enlightened, either accidentally or by seeking education.

Tower Bridge by Paul Bisson

I’ve told you before that I’m a lover of paintings of bridges.  I’ve even said that I don’t like to have prints on the wall, because I want the original works of art.  That said, I do make exceptions from time to time.  I remember a day, when we were walking through one of the nearby flea markets, listening once again to the astonished remarks from the shoppers.  We took a detour through the art section, not expecting to find anything, but you know, “just in case…”  As we browsed through the awful oils and acrylics, and even a velvet Elvis, the Lovely Lady picked up a pretty little print of the Tower Bridge in London, England and showed it to me.  “It’s a print,” I remarked, disdainfully.  “I like it, though.  It’s only fifteen dollars,” came the reply.  We bought it.  I secretly figured we could always hang it up in the guest bedroom, where I wouldn’t ever have to look at it.

Even though I didn’t care anything about it, when we got home, we examined the print a little closer and found that it was signed by the artist.  It also gave evidence of being hand-colored, a fact corroborated by the label, also signed by the artist, which we found under the paper on the back.  I did some research on this artist, finding that he is a very well-known English painter, with his prints demanding fairly high market prices.  The newer, more common ones regular sell for hundreds of dollars, with potential for his older, rarer prints to bring many times that.  My opinion of the little print is somewhat changed.  What a beautiful piece of art!  Have I told you how much I love prints?  

Wow!  Isn’t it amazing how a little illumination in the darkness gives a different perspective?   I will tell you honestly that I wasn’t raised to be open-minded.  Mine was a black-and-white environment, with decisions made and matters closed.  In the strange movie “O Brother, Where Art Thou?”, when the estranged wife of the protagonist, Everett says, “I’ve said my piece and counted to ten,” I see myself.  I’ve spent most of my life stubborn and intractable, telling all the world that I know I’m right and no one can prove differently.  I’m happy to say that the older I get, the more often I see the light bulb of new information lighting up the room.  I’ve changed my stance on quite a few subjects, although some have also been reinforced again and again, so they’ll not be changing.  My faith, in spite of a few relevant questions on occasion, remains firm and I’m content for it to be so.  Some things just aren’t open for revision.  But the peripherals, the non-essentials?  Talk to me about them.  There’s room for new ideas. 

I’m fairly sure you’ll never make me like Picasso, but give it a shot.  They do say that beauty is in the eye of the beholder…

“Remember that the most valuable antiques are dear old friends.”
(H. Jackson Browne Jr.~American author)

“A great many open minds should be closed for repairs.”
(quote from The Toledo Blade)

The CJ5 Jeep was out of control, the dirt and rocks spraying up as it veered back and forth from one side of the gravel road to the other.  As we headed for the bar ditch at the side of the road, I had a quick vision of the beautiful, blue, open vehicle flipped upside down in the field, with two bodies lying under it, crushed and bleeding.  Right now, I know you’re asking, “What’s a bar ditch?”  I can just sense the word nerd in you wanting to know the etymology of that term.  Well, when I was growing up, most of the country roads in South Texas had a ditch paralleling them on each side, which we called a bar ditch.  We didn’t know why then, that was just what we called it.  As is true with most words though, there’s a reason for the name.  Legend has it that the word actually might come from one of two related sources, either a “barrow ditch”, or a “borrow ditch”.  The barrow term refers to the day before road graders, when farmers would use a shovel and wheelbarrow to dig a trench along the lane and build up the roadway above the ditch.  The lane would be built either with “barrow” dirt or “borrowed” dirt, thus giving the trench it came from it’s name.  Time has shortened the name to bar ditch and in that hot and dry climate, it serves a very real purpose of carrying water, both for drainage of the rare, but sudden deluges of  rain, and for irrigation which comes from the nearby Rio Grande.

What’s that?  Oh, you weren’t interested in the word nerdery, you want to know about the bleeding bodies.  Well, let me start at the beginning.  I was working for the pharmacy at the time and the breathtaking Jeep was my delivery vehicle.  Yeah, it was pretty awesome!  For an 18 year old, the possibilities were endless.  Mud, dirt, even pavement were all playgrounds, waiting to be romped through.  The mud and dirt need no explanation, but on the pavement, this beauty, in the hands of a daring young teenage driver, was dynamite!  The short wheelbase made it maneuverable beyond belief, so bumper to bumper traffic was simply a Checkers game, darting past car after car, then squeezing into spaces which were barely adequate for its length.  And, the torque this jewel had from a stop!  You have never seen rubber laid on the pavement unless you’ve seen what could be done with mud tires and the first and second gears of  this little doozy.  I remember a black mark almost one block…But, once again, I’ve chased a rabbit trail, and you’re still waiting for the blood and guts.

On this particular day, my boss had asked me to pick up his daughter, herself a young beauty, from a friend’s house and deliver her to his home, which was about a mile down a gravel road.  The girl was only fifteen and was learning to drive.  As we turned onto the unpaved section of road, she begged me to let her drive.  “Daddy’s taught me how to use the clutch and I’m a good driver!  Please…”  What was a young man to do?  What a predicament!  Obviously, I had no choice, so we stopped and exchanged places in the car.  As she sat in the driver’s seat, looking nervous, I realized that she wasn’t as experienced with driving as she had led me to believe, but there was no turning back now.  “Move the shift lever to first gear,” I instructed, and she did so, clumsily.  This wasn’t looking so good.  “Now, give the accelerator some gas, and ease the clutch out.”  She revved the engine and popped the clutch.  We jerked forward and the motor died.  After a restart and a little more instruction (you do remember that I’m not much of a teacher?), she tried again, this time lurching forward a few more feet than before.

The final time she started the Jeep, and frustrated, she listened to my “ease the clutch out” speech one more time.  This time, although she revved the motor until it screamed in protest, the clutch eased out and at last we were moving forward…albeit accelerating at an extremely high rate of speed.  Did I mention the great low-end torque this car had?  Wide-eyed, the young lady knew beyond a doubt that she was finally moving, but she was absolutely not in control of this juggernaut.  As she careened this way and that, I screamed at her to push the clutch back in, but it was too late.  We hit the bar ditch at an angle, thankfully not overturning, but seemingly flying through the air for many feet, before coming to rest with the tires still on the ground and not in the air spinning, as I had visualized during the terrifying seconds (which seemed like an eternity) prior.

We sat there stunned.  After a few moments, she started to laugh and reached down to restart the motor.  “Not on your life!” I shouted between gasps of breath.  “You ride, I’m driving”  With her still laughing, we drove slowly out of the bean field and down the gravel road to the boss’s house.  It took half an hour to get the delivery packages back into any semblance of order, and finally I was back on the road, weaving in and out of traffic, darting into tiny spaces to make turns and accelerating out of the way of the braking, gesturing drivers around me.

I’m still not great at refusing beautiful ladies their requests, especially one in particular, but terror has a way of teaching caution.  There were no more driving lessons, until a few years later when the Lovely Lady requested that I teach her to drive a standard shift car.  With visions of that oncoming bar ditch in my mind’s eye, I assented.  We may or may not explore that experience in future writings.  Probably not…

“Knowledge comes, but wisdom lingers.”
(Alfred Lord Tennyson~English Poet~1809-1892)

“Treads rush in where wise men fear to fool”
(Bad 20th Century play on words)

The shimmering, treble-heavy chords rang out as the man sat with the beautiful rosewood and spruce guitar.  He was a skilled guitar player, executing difficult barre chords and arpeggios in between the melodic passages of the popular song he was playing.  He was enthralled, not with his own playing, but with the incredible sound of the 12-string guitar.  Because of the unique tuning method the twelve-string guitar employs, it has a chorus-like effect when strummed.  The octave-tuned bass strings add an upper harmonic tone to the lows, while the unison treble strings seem to add a hint of vibrato to the highs, with the overall effect being almost like hearing a choir which is heavy on the female voices.   “I love it!” he exclaimed.  “It has an amazing tone and the action is really close and comfortable, but I don’t hear any fret buzz.”

It didn’t hurt that the guitar maker had selected an amazing, figured Brazilian rosewood for the back and sides of the body.  Never mind that no one else would see the beauty of that view, since all that showed to any onlookers was the natural, almost white top, beautiful in its own way.  The straight grained Adirondack spruce had none of the showiness that the rosewood boasted, but this solid piece of wood was selected for its resonance, not for looks.  If you tapped on the top without plucking the strings, there was almost a “boom” of sound, the tone enhanced by the hand carved braces on the underside, each one serving a dual purpose; that of distributing the sound generated by the bronze and silvered-steel strings all the way to the edges and also the very important task of providing stability to the instrument.  The pull created by the twelve strings stretched up to tension is something over 250 pounds of pressure, so a weak top and inadequate bracing are just not acceptable.

The guitar wasn’t inexpensive, but this fellow had a plan.  As we haggled over the price, he excused himself and went out to his car, returning presently with a nice six-string guitar.  “I’d like to trade this in,” he suggested hopefully, knowing that my answer would determine whether he would be leaving the store with the coveted 12-string or merely with what he had carried in.  I examined the guitar, checking all the potential trouble spots before offering a fair trade-in value.  He asked me to give him a moment and I left him alone.  Mere seconds later, mental calculations made, he called me back over to announce, “I’ll take it!”

In the course of the transaction, I discovered that this gentleman only owned the one guitar he was trading in.  He certainly didn’t follow the pattern of most of my customers, who have the mantra “You can’t have too many guitars” tattooed in indelible ink on their brains.  Nevertheless, I took his only 6-string guitar and hung it on the rack, while he excitedly placed the beautiful 12-string in the case and carried it proudly out to his car.

Another satisfied customer…and I had a few dollars going into the bank, with a nice guitar on the rack to boot!  Life was good!  But, if memory serves, it wasn’t more than three weeks later that the fellow walked back into the store.  “I want to buy my guitar back,” he said sheepishly.  I was just too curious.  “Did something happen to the 12-string?”  He hesitated a moment.  “Well…no.  It’s just that I’m pretty tired of the sound of that guitar.  No, not pretty tired…Very tired!”  We worked out an equitable price for his old guitar and he headed out the door.  I waited until he was in his car and leaving the parking lot to break out laughing.  Of all the ridiculous situations!  How do you fall in love with a guitar, only to fall out of love with it inside of three weeks?

As it happens, the very same thing that attracted him to the guitar in the first place was what drove him back to his first love.  The shimmery, bright sound of the 12-string is amazingly enticing in small doses, but a steady diet quickly turns to annoyance, as the edgy, treble-y tones begin to grate on the nerves.  I also wouldn’t discount the labor intensive task of tuning, either.  Unison strings are notoriously difficult to match to each other, the octaves only slightly less demanding.  I couldn’t count the number of times that 12-string guitars have been carried into the store, strung with only half of the strings.

The best 6-string acoustic guitars are wonderfully designed and executed works of art, whose beauty is not primarily in the aesthetic elements, but in the balanced, evenly projected tone quality.  The bass strings provide the foundation necessary for full chords; the treble section doing its part to fulfill the melodic demands of the instrument.  When played together, the blend is heavenly.  Neither is overbearing, but both are essential partners in creating a pleasing musical experience.  The 12-string guitar is an accent instrument, fulfilling a purpose, but not well-suited for continuous use.  Too much of it and the listener is annoyed, rather than soothed.

What a picture of life!  We hold in our hands the necessities, the essentials for satisfaction.  But in the distance, the siren call of the exotic beckons.  And, believing that we’ve found the answer to all of our seeking, we abandon the necessary, only to be sated all too soon by the rich taste of the desirable.  Balance is a tricky thing.  But it is absolutely essential to harmony and sanity.  Just as in a good meal, where the quantity of the indispensable meat and vegetables far surpasses the small portion of dessert, life requires careful choices. 

Just a reminder…I do have a couple of 12-string guitars to sell in my store, which I’d love to show to you any time.  Just don’t bring your only 6-string in as a trade-in.  I don’t want it.

“In everything, the middle course is best; all things in excess bring trouble to men.”
(Titus Maccius Plautus~Roman playwright~circa 254 BC-184 BC)

 
“Nothing, in excess.”
(Ancient Greek proverb)

Bedtime was eight o’clock.  The clanging of the ancient Seth Thomas mantle clock downstairs seemed to reverberate through the whole house as it announced midnight.  I was still awake, as usual.  The sweltering South Texas heat wasn’t the culprit, but it certainly didn’t help.  The old hassock fan in the middle of the converted attic room did little more than swirl around the suffocating air, and not even much of that since my older brother had put some books under the leg on his side to aim the airflow up to his level.  The heat was incessant, an ever-present condition, but that couldn’t explain my sleeplessness.  Come to think of it, the sleeplessness was also incessant, a chronic predicament for me.  Every night, it was the same.  Headed up the stairs with my three brothers, two of us to a room, to be abed by eight o’clock.  The logic evades me today, much as it did way back then.  Perhaps the early bedtime was like the Sunday afternoon nap; not so much a necessity for the children as it was a respite for the exhausted parents.  Who couldn’t use a quiet hour or two without five kids underfoot, as they were all day?

The time to relax and unwind probably wasn’t all that restful for them, though.  Within minutes, the arguments upstairs would start over picayune matters.  The position of the fan comes to mind, but there were other situations, insignificant now, but of weighty import to an eight or nine year old intent on not conforming to this “early to bed, early to rise” philosophy.   Any argument which could pass five minutes meant less time to wish I were doing something more profitable than lying in the (to me) useless bed.  The inevitable footstep at the bottom of the stairwell and the stern, “Boys!” would also soon be heard, with a resultant hush for a few moments, only to have the melee break out anew within a short period of time.  There might be one more vocal warning before more drastic measures were taken, but even the trip downstairs for a little corporal punishment didn’t serve the purpose intended, since I was more wide awake than ever when I returned to bed. 

One of my older brothers in the other room was always oblivious of this activity, since he was usually asleep when his head hit the pillow.  My eldest brother, in the second bed in that room, was so much older than I (four years), that he didn’t deign to be drawn into the petty activities often, but I do remember a few incidents which included his presence.  Once in awhile, wide awake and restless, we would scheme and then would slip out of the house via the window and roof.  The converted attic rooms we were in utilized a dormer design which put the roof right outside our window at a convenient height to step out onto, allowing us to traverse the length of the house at the highest peak to a conveniently placed tree at the back corner.  I remember late night bike rides, flags raised on the mailboxes up and down the street, doorbells rung, and even a close escape from the police in town one night.  All too soon (or not a moment too soon, depending on your perspective), Dad discovered the nighttime forays and nailed the window screens shut, putting a stop to that nocturnal activity.

We grew up, with the bedtime curfews moving later with our ages, but still it was never late enough for me.  Even today, decades later, I will freely admit that I function best during the nighttime hours.  My thought processes seem more lucid, the creativity flows in a way it never does during daylight.  The musical instruments beg to be employed after bedtime for normal folks, the books call to me from their repose on the shelf.  I’m even ready to follow my regimen of physical exercise more often as the wee hours arrive, with the added benefit that the late night walks and runs allow me to observe the nocturnal habits of some of the more shy wildlife.

I had always expected that these habits would change as I aged, my bedtime coming more into line with the accepted norms among my peers.  But we sit in meetings that run late and even the young folks start to yawn and stare glassy-eyed as we approach ten o’clock, and I’m ready to keep going.  Bedtime has actually moved later as I’ve grown past middle age.  Unfortunately, the time to arise in the morning hasn’t moved a commensurate amount, so five hours of sleep a night is average, with that amount padded a bit, aided by an evening nap on days when there is opportunity.  My doctor is not happy, but I have tried earlier bedtime with disastrous results.  Lying in bed before becoming tired enough to sleep only causes stress, which causes…guess what?  Yep, less sleep.  I think I’ll continue to go to bed when I’m sleepy and trust that my body will know to demand more rest when it’s necessary.  I have especially enjoyed the late night hours for the last few months, as I’ve had opportunity to put my thoughts into written form in this blog.  If there has been no other benefit, the joy at expressing my ideas in this way has been an exhilarating experience for this old coot.  No doubt, I’ve benefited immensely more than the readers have.  Nevertheless, I thank any of you who have taken time to glean a morsel here and there, too.

Oh! I saw a list of possible causes of sleeplessness recently.  The one that jumped out at me was mental illness, but I’m going to leave that can of worms unopened.  As the folks at Fox say, “I report, you decide.”

 Sleep tight!

“Dawn: when men of reason go to bed.”
(Ambrose Bierce~American journalist and writer~1842-1914)

“Adam laid himself down in Paradise to sleep
While from him was taken a wife to keep.
Adam, poor father of creation’s best
Your first taste of sleep was your last of rest.”
(Matthias Claudius~German poet~1740-1815)