My guitar
I bought a guitar
for six bucks
from Santiago
my neighbor from Columbia
who was selling everything
in his overstocked garage
so he could buy a used Hyundai
for his daughter
for her seventeenth birthday
“You need a lawnmower, Sport?”
he yells to me
as I walk my dog past his house
at half past nine on Saturday morning
“such a beautiful machine,”
I shake my head
in terror at the thought
of mowing the goddamned grass
he goes on:
“You need hedge clippers?…three bucks!!
CHEAP…amigo”
fuck the hedge I say to myself
so
I let the dog pee in the bush beside
his house…
then it comes:
“hey…you want paint?”
but I tell him
I hate painting
and I’ve come to like
the lime green paint
that’s peeling off of my house
in strips…
(it’s good for five more years
maybe more)
then he tells me he has:
a Portuguese Bible,
a convection oven,
a five ton floor jack,
a ten ton box
of romance novels,
and a Henry Hill, autographed
ice pick
plus
snow tires for my Subaru
and
the third season of Dallas
on VHS…
then he tells me about
the guitar?
so I bought it — for six bucks and I took it home
…the guitar
and for two and a half hours
I sat on the back porch with the dog
and put my bare feet on the railing
and pretended I was Ernest Tubb
singing
Walking the Floor Over You
plucking at the strings with my good hand
until my wife came home
and reminded me
that I don’t
know how to play
the guitar.
Ed's end of the planet books 
Thanks for the smile tonight!
And thank you for reading Elyse.
My Dad was shown 2 chords – G & C, I think – and how to strum – and then for years he sat in with others who played, learning as he went – would keep trying a new song he’d heard on the radio while Mom fixed supper, shrugging her shoulders and crinkling her face everytime a note was missed, until he learned it and moved on to the next new tune to learn –
The fact that you know who Earnest Tubb is, bodes well for your future as a guitar picker – – 🙂
I think that I have little future as a guitar picker 🙂 And I certainly will never be anything close to Ernest Tubb — a guy who was truly one of the greats. I saw Ernest with my parents back in the mid-60s or so at the KRNT theatre in Des Moines, Iowa. The Oprey used to tour around back then. I don’t think they do much of that anymore. I can’t recall any of the other performers, but I remember Ernest very well.
🙂 I learned to play Silent Night before I figured out I’d best stick to the piano! LOL