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I feel like actually starting this by saying the date, February 2, 2006. But I know that would be redundant, because this post will actually contain it. In any case, I'm going to say home the date: February 02, 2006.

This post, I am doing in windows 2000. Forget linux. I'm also using voice dictation /speech recognition. You get to choose the vocabulary you want to describe the function. Depending on my mood, I will sometimes not bother rereading what I have spoken. If this doesn't make any sense, you will simply need to read it out loud to see what I have said. If you read out loud, you'll understand better. Your choice!

Choice is a good thing.

I'm going to tell a story about what happened when I was a young kid , beginning around twelve years old. This story is related to operations, music, hospitals, and other related items. When I was twelve the doctor wanted to do an operation on my left wrist. He wanted to make the left wrist straight like the right wrist, which he had recently operated on. I decided I wanted to leave the left this the way it was, since I had a feeling I was going to want to learn to play the guitar, and wanted to have the wrist like that, since I believe it needed to be like that so that I could play the guitar.

Anyway, the doctor agreed with my request, and did not do the operation. You can imagine the surprise of my parents when they heard the doctor agree so easily. I don't think anyone figured I would never be able to play a musical instrument.

Later…
I found a guitar in the attic. I'm not sure where it came from. Part of the story that I remember around time is that this guitar belonged to a friend of Dick, my brother. His friend died in a car accident. Apparently he wrapped his car around a telephone pole. [If my brother John, who is still alive, (my brother Dick died several years ago playing hockey) reads this, he would probably be able to confirm the story, since he's the one in the family who is more concerned with history and the goings on in the family than I am . ]

I'm not totally sure it is relevant that the guitar belonged to a young fellow who died in a car accident. But it makes for interesting story!

Anyway, I got the guitar, and started to try to learn how to play. Clearly it was not going to be an easy process, but after quite a long time, I think 2 years, I was actually able to play something that sounded like something that someone could recognize. I remember always asking my mother, "What song am I playing? ". Then, one day, she recognized the song I was playing, or should I say trying to play. I don't think she was guessing, because a few days later I tried another song, and she recognized that one as well. If you're interested in knowing, both of them were songs by Gordon Lightfoot. The first one was "pussy willows cattails", and the second one was "did She mention my name". That was the moment when I knew I was actually been successful at playing the guitar. Eventually, I got another guitar, this one was actually brand new. It was a Harmony. It played fairly well. The problem with it was that I did a lot of overtones and harmonics and that the harmony was just not good enough to do those correctly.

The Gibson
A few years later, we were on vacation to St. John's Newfoundland. I was always keeping my eyes open for new or better guitar. At that time, in the late nineteen sixties, there were really only two or three good guitar makers : Gibson, Fender, and Martin.

Leah, my daughter writes up the rest of the story...

Let's call this a collaborative piece. A story told as it is remembered. Maybe simply a fond memory.

When I was learning to play the guitar, back in early high school, my dad told me a story about one of his first guitars. It didn't belong to him yet, but he became its owner very quickly. I wasn't a very talented guitarist, but dad and Jamie inspired me to keep on trying. At the time I couldn't admit that they were my motivation, but such is the way of teenagers. Well, this teenager at least. Dad had a completely different story of learning to play, and an even more interesting one of getting his first guitar. A sexy mother of a Gibson.

I forget where this took place. For some reason I think it might've been in the East Coast, but that would make no sense, seeing as he's from Southern Ontario. So I'll settle for a small town in Ontario. We'll call it Hearst. Just because I know some things happened there for dad. And we'll say that this happened in the summer because it involves no jackets and wet boots. I don't remember how old dad was when this happened either, but in all his stories I just assume that he's my age.

So when dad was nineteen, he and his father, Tom, went out on a mission: to get dad a guitar. We all know that the only good guitars at the time were the Fender, Gibson and Martin. Or at least this was dad's assumption. Walking down a more or less crowded street, they see many eclectic-looking places. Interesting store-fronts, colourful advertisements. But these two men have a goal; the other possible purchases won't distract them.

Soon enough they stumble into a small music shop. Small, as it seemed from the front room. All the cheap, not-so-great instruments and music books were kept in that front room, see? Dad saw right through all the regular guitars and headed straight to the back room, where all the real ones were kept. The store owner, let's call him Sunny-Boy for the sake of this story, tried to stop him, assuming that this odd-looking boy and his father would be quite satisfied with one of his mediocre pieces.

But it was instant love. As soon as dad saw that beautiful Gibson, he knew it would be his. Getting excited, he asked Sunny-Boy to let him play it, "please please please...” The man hesitated, looked at the boy with the funny arms and hands, and refused: "You can't play that!" Discouraged, dad and his father looked at each other and wondered how they would convince this man that Jimbo was indeed a good musician. Dad got his courage up and looked at the owner with an unrefusable challenge: "Give me that guitar, and I'll play any song you tell me to play." The man, baffled, thought out his options. If this little boy was good, he would be impressed. And if the boy was not good, Sunny-Boy would have himself a strong lengthy laugh at the boy's struggling attempts. "Alright, play me Beethoven's overture 9th symphony, the Song of Joy." Dad accepted.

This is when you start to wonder... is he nuts? Does dad even know this song? Will he have to improvise? Will Sunny-Boy get a chance to have his laugh of the day? The man hands dad the guitar, hesitant to let it go in case the boy with funny arms can't hold it right. This guitar is, after all, the best in the shop. Stepping back with a proud look on his face, thinking that this boy will make a fool of himself. Little did he know that this was one of little Jimbo's mother's favorite songs. He'd played it for her numerous times, one of his best pieces.

As is the luck of the Floods.

Sitting on a stool with the guitar in his hands, dad thinks for a few moments. Dad knows how to impress this man. He drags out the time, increasing the anticipation in Sunny-Boy. Just when the store-owner starts to think that he's been taken advantage of by a boy who can't play a single tune, dad starts to play the Song of Joy.

But dad can't go out so plainly. He has style, and he's using it. Playing with harmonics and his individual twist on the song, the piece is impressive and beautiful.
By the time dad is done playing, the Sunny-Boy is absolutely baffled. This funny-armed boy just played his favorite song incredibly, on his best guitar, a Gibson that would normally sell for a crapload of money. This here is an emotional moment for Sunny-Boy. He's been proven wrong, and he's just heard one of the most beautiful songs in his life. He considers his options once again. This boy has talent, and Sunny-Boy wants him to go out and impress others in the same way that he's just witnessed.

Still baffled and taken back, the man looks at Tom and tells him, "I'll sell this piece to your boy for a hundred bucks."

Jimbo looks up at his dad with hope in his eyes. Will Tom buy it? Will he step down humbly saying, "I can't do this."

Walking out of the store with his new Gibson, dad looks back at Sunny-Boy with a big smile, and hears the big man laughing.

This is Jim writing now. Here are some of the details:

We were on vacation in St John's Newfoundland. Water Street downtown. I was seventeen or eighteen. He was selling the guitar for $580.00. My father talked him down to $400.00. I asked if I could try it. He said no. “You’ll just drop the guitar.” he said. I said "you name any piece of music, if I can play it, you'll drop the price and half!". He said "ok, then" and after thinkink a moment, said "the overture to the ninth symphony, song of joy". I played it. I like the guitar. I told my father we just bought the guitar for $200.00. My father started counting on twenties. The man in the store said you cannot do that. The $200.00 was on the counter, and I was on the street with the guitar.

Deal closed: lesson learned. Choices accepted. There is a part two ... but another day.