Monday, April 04, 2005

Music and Memories

I remember hearing my dad play his guitar he liked to call Manuel. He would be sitting on his and mom's bed piddling with the strings, making sure they were in tune and strumming when it fit the moment. All five of us, dad sitting on one side, mom on the other with us three kids piled down on the other end. Sometimes he'd do little riffs, kind of classical and spanish in nature all at once. Other times is be boistrous strumming. Many years later my sister was given a chance to learn the basics from dad as well as my brother. My sister began learning, but seemed to give it up once Tarrith started learning it. I remember taking another guitar that was a pre-cursor to Manuel that my dad took with him when he went on a mission trip to South America with some people in his church away with me to college, but I never learned how to use it and when I was going to start I found out that the lathe was warped and it would have cost more than the guitar was worth to fix. I am sorry I never got it fixed so that I could learn to play as well as dad played Manuel.

Many years ago, long before any of us Solon kids were a twinkle in dad's eye and before he met mom, my dad was in the Navy servicing the early F series fighter planes on the USS Independence. On one of his many stops in that venerable ship, it stopped in Cordoba (correction from dad, the Isle was actually Majorca) off the coast of Spain. There is where my father found and bought Manuel. I used to imagine my dad negotiating with the sales clerk in spanish. Many years later when my dad was helping me with my Spanish in high school I found out that the clerk was English, but it never detracted from my idealist view of the shop and of the guitar that my father enjoyed playing.

I don't know if Manuel gets that much of a workout anymore. I hope my dad sometime takes it out on a lazy evening when Kathy is home to serenade her, or to just listen and remember.

3 comments:

T said...

Good memories.
My mom played the clarinet in high school, but I have never heard her play it, just the radio. ^_^

Anonymous said...

Great memories. two small corrections.
1. the Isle of majorca is where the guitar was bought.

2. Manuel was just my nick name not the brand. It is a hand made guitar. Not made by a factory the name on the lable is taymar.

Athene said...

Editors note:

The Anon who posted is none other than the owner of said guitar, my dad.

I loved the fact that it was hand made. It made it really special.