Losing It

   The recent emergence of music in my life, has come, it seems, with a raft of lost articles.  I can’t find most of these objects, because I haven’t used them for such a long time.  The first thing I realized that I couldn’t find was my pink Bob Dylan book, which was full of the lyrics to his songs.  It was a very useful reference.  

    I looked on the bookshelf among my other music books, but it wasn’t there, and that left me stymied.  Where could it be?  I checked other sections of the bookcase, in case it got mis-shelved, but it was nowhere to be found.

    Years ago, I often took it to “jams”, but it had been such a long time ago, I feared I might have left it at someone’s house.  I checked inside the empty guitar cases under my bed, but it wasn’t there.  Where could it be?  I finally called Dave Milne, who is a big Dylan fan, to see if I had loaned it to him, but he didn’t have.  It was gone.

    Bummer, oh well, now days you can find any lyrics you want on the internet, so I guess I shouldn’t get too upset over losing the Dylan book.

    Then the other night, I thought I would play a bit on my electric guitar.  It had been a long time since I had done that, and since my new musician friends had talked about maybe doing an electric jam today, I thought it would probably be a good thing for me to reintroduce myself to my “axe”.  I picked my guitar off of the stand where it has been sitting for probably a year, and took it into my office to play a bit.

    I played, without an amp, some old Neil Young songs, some Beatle tunes, and some from the Byrds, when the telephone rang.  It was my ex-neighbor Kjell, who seems to have recovered from a recent, near fatal, medical  problem.  He has returned to McBride, and is ready to start cross country skiing again.

    While I was talking to Kjell, I still had my guitar in my hand, and as I was wiping some of the dust off of it, I noticed that one of the nobs, to adjust the sound was missing (see photo).  Damn, now when did that come off?  Surely, I would have noticed it was missing, the last time I had taken it anywhere, but then I had just been playing it for 20 minutes, and hadn’t noticed it was gone.  Where could it be?

    Again, I checked inside the guitar cases under the bed, but it wasn’t to be found.  Replacing the knob  was going to be a big hassle.  I would probably have to contact the maker to get one that matched the remaining one.  Maybe, next time I was in some city with a music store, I could just buy some generic knobs, instead of the gold plated ones.  Damn.

    Yesterday, Joan asked if I had any dirty clothes that needed washing.  I reached down and gathered up some T-shirts and long underwear from the floor, and heard a “clunk”.  The missing gold plated guitar knob bounced across the floor.  I must have fell off the other night, when I carried the guitar from it’s stand, to my office.  What a relief.

    Last night, I went over to the dresser in my office to return some newly recharged batteries to the place I keep them.  When I got there, I happened to glance up at the books on top of the dresser, and there was my pink Bob Dylan book.  Amazing.

    Now,  if I could only find my brown vintage electric guitar cable.

To read some of my older blogs, or to view my paintings, go to:  www.davidmarchant.ca