Interlude on My First Guitar
Every guitar player I've ever talked to remembers his or her first guitar. That Fender his Dad bought him for Christmas in 1987; the dusty acoustic she found in the attic, a relic from Mom's hippie days.
Me, I got my first guitar from my sister.
It was a week before the Christmas I was turning 10 years old. I don't remember what I wanted that year--probably something along the lines of a Forenza sweatshirt, or a new sticker book. What I do know is that nowhere on my wish list was there anything remotely resembling a mandolin-sized, nylon-strung, blue plastic guitar with Smurfs all over it.
I repeat, I did not ask for the Smurf guitar.*
My sister and I were hanging out under the Christmas tree, shaking and pinching and sniffing the packages we'd gotten for one another, daring each other to guess what was inside.
She was ten, turning eleven shortly after the holiday, and had a ten-year-old's skills at gift wrapping. That is to say, she had the square gift and the rectangular gift down cold. But the oblong gift with the long skinny neck and the whiskery, protuding string-ends? Notta so much. When I happened upon it in the obscene gift pile, I had an inkling, pretty much right away, that it was a kid's guitar.
A kid's guitar? Surely not. There was no reason I could think of that my sister--my sister who was practically my twin, we were so close in age and circumstance--would have given me a kid's guitar.
A) I was not a kid. I was turning ten. I didn't even watch the Smurfs anymore!
B) I had never expressed any interest whatsoever in learning to play the guitar.
"You got me . . . a guitar? A . . . Smurf guitar?" I was incredulous.
A Smurf guitar was the kind of gift a parent might pick out for the kid of a friend of the family. It was an educational gift; one that required actual work to operate. It was not a toy. And it was not a Forenza sweatshirt.
It was, in my mind, not the kind of gift an almost eleven-year-old girl had any business giving to her almost ten-year-old sister.
I'll spare you the details of the fight that ensued. Suffice it to say that if we were to attempt a contemporary renactment of the situation, the part of the Guitar Girl might be played by Bart Simpson, while the part of the sister would be played by one of the Flanders kids. Basically, I got all freaky on her, and she cowered in the corner protecting the innocent Smurf guitar from my slander.
"Why on earth would you ever waste my Christmas gift money on this?" I demanded. "You can't have thought I actually wanted it! What were you thinking? Did Mom put you up to this??"
Okay, I admit it, even at ten I could be a bitch.
But still, I felt entirely justified. I was waiting for her to plead temporary insanity ("it was the flourescent lights at Target! I lost all control of my judgment!"). Instead, she looked at me wide-eyed and injured. Yep, she whipped out her world-famous "You are hurting me deeply, sister" look. As a kid, that one got me every time. (Who am I kidding--damn thing still works.)
When I calmed down from my rage and incredulity long enough to recognize the look, I was suddenly overtaken by guilt. So I did what any generally kind-hearted ten-year-old would do after she excorciated her sister for giving her a gift she would never want in a million years.
I backpedaled like mad.
"Actually, Mr. M. (our elementary school music teacher) was just telling me the other day I should learn how to play the guitar!"
"Really, I didn't want a stupid old sticker book anyway. I have a million already!"
"Blue is, after all, my favorite color. How thoughtful of you!"
The backpedaling continued right up until Christmas day, when I opened the gift for real and pretended--for our parents' benefit--to be surprised and delighted by it. The next day it took its place in the City of Lost Toys that was my bedroom, somewhere between the Babushka Babinka doll I never played with and the Fisher Price record player that had, the day before, been replaced by a bonafide stereo. (Clearly Santa knew I wasn't a kid anymore.)
*NOTE: Over the years there has been some question over whether the guitar was actually a Smurf guitar or simply a guitar that happened to be Smurf blue. I admit that I have yet to find verification of the existence of an official Smurf guitar online, but I did find a Smurf drum set--and what good are drums without lead guitar? I believe this case is closed.
Me, I got my first guitar from my sister.
It was a week before the Christmas I was turning 10 years old. I don't remember what I wanted that year--probably something along the lines of a Forenza sweatshirt, or a new sticker book. What I do know is that nowhere on my wish list was there anything remotely resembling a mandolin-sized, nylon-strung, blue plastic guitar with Smurfs all over it.
I repeat, I did not ask for the Smurf guitar.*
My sister and I were hanging out under the Christmas tree, shaking and pinching and sniffing the packages we'd gotten for one another, daring each other to guess what was inside.
She was ten, turning eleven shortly after the holiday, and had a ten-year-old's skills at gift wrapping. That is to say, she had the square gift and the rectangular gift down cold. But the oblong gift with the long skinny neck and the whiskery, protuding string-ends? Notta so much. When I happened upon it in the obscene gift pile, I had an inkling, pretty much right away, that it was a kid's guitar.
A kid's guitar? Surely not. There was no reason I could think of that my sister--my sister who was practically my twin, we were so close in age and circumstance--would have given me a kid's guitar.
A) I was not a kid. I was turning ten. I didn't even watch the Smurfs anymore!
B) I had never expressed any interest whatsoever in learning to play the guitar.
"You got me . . . a guitar? A . . . Smurf guitar?" I was incredulous.
A Smurf guitar was the kind of gift a parent might pick out for the kid of a friend of the family. It was an educational gift; one that required actual work to operate. It was not a toy. And it was not a Forenza sweatshirt.
It was, in my mind, not the kind of gift an almost eleven-year-old girl had any business giving to her almost ten-year-old sister.
I'll spare you the details of the fight that ensued. Suffice it to say that if we were to attempt a contemporary renactment of the situation, the part of the Guitar Girl might be played by Bart Simpson, while the part of the sister would be played by one of the Flanders kids. Basically, I got all freaky on her, and she cowered in the corner protecting the innocent Smurf guitar from my slander.
"Why on earth would you ever waste my Christmas gift money on this?" I demanded. "You can't have thought I actually wanted it! What were you thinking? Did Mom put you up to this??"
Okay, I admit it, even at ten I could be a bitch.
But still, I felt entirely justified. I was waiting for her to plead temporary insanity ("it was the flourescent lights at Target! I lost all control of my judgment!"). Instead, she looked at me wide-eyed and injured. Yep, she whipped out her world-famous "You are hurting me deeply, sister" look. As a kid, that one got me every time. (Who am I kidding--damn thing still works.)
When I calmed down from my rage and incredulity long enough to recognize the look, I was suddenly overtaken by guilt. So I did what any generally kind-hearted ten-year-old would do after she excorciated her sister for giving her a gift she would never want in a million years.
I backpedaled like mad.
"Actually, Mr. M. (our elementary school music teacher) was just telling me the other day I should learn how to play the guitar!"
"Really, I didn't want a stupid old sticker book anyway. I have a million already!"
"Blue is, after all, my favorite color. How thoughtful of you!"
The backpedaling continued right up until Christmas day, when I opened the gift for real and pretended--for our parents' benefit--to be surprised and delighted by it. The next day it took its place in the City of Lost Toys that was my bedroom, somewhere between the Babushka Babinka doll I never played with and the Fisher Price record player that had, the day before, been replaced by a bonafide stereo. (Clearly Santa knew I wasn't a kid anymore.)
*NOTE: Over the years there has been some question over whether the guitar was actually a Smurf guitar or simply a guitar that happened to be Smurf blue. I admit that I have yet to find verification of the existence of an official Smurf guitar online, but I did find a Smurf drum set--and what good are drums without lead guitar? I believe this case is closed.
posted by Kelly at 10:48 AM
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