I am one of those people that is hardly ever satisfied with anything. I suppose it is both my boon and bane in some ways. One of the few things that I have that I am really content with is my guitar; the same one I have been playing for about seven years or so now.

Every time I pick it up it feels like having a visit with an old friend. In a way, it is a reminder from an old friend. I'll explain that in a little bit. As for the instrument, the thickness of the neck feels right to my hand, the tension on the strings and the height of the frets seem to be the way a guitar should be. I have played many others that are ‘easier' to play and I have heard some that ring more clearly or more loudly, but I have never seen another that could compete with mine overall. Not that there aren't better quality instruments out there, but it's the only one that feels right to me. It has little groves in the fret board where my fingers have been for so long. It's almost like an indicator of where to put your fingers to make the chords. I don't do a whole lot of fancy stuff, I just play along and listen to everyone else do the fancy picking.

But the reason I like it so well might have something to do with the way I came to own it.

It was about three o'clock one day and I was still at work when a friend came by to visit me with sad news. He had pawned his Alvarez guitar about one month before. He said he was out of money and couldn't foresee any way to get it out of pawn. I guess it might have had something to do with his way of making a living. You see, I don't recall him ever having a job for more than a few months since I met him. He was just one of those kind of folks that seem to know how to get by in life without holding down a steady job. He would work in Christmas trees and tobacco, he'd sometimes do farm chores or build fence, occasionally taking on other odd jobs to make ends meet.

The guitar was a very nice one, I knew, because he had let me see it and play it before. It is a fairly standard model in appearance, with the possible exception of the little knobs on the top near the front. They control the tone and the volume if it is hooked up to a PA (public address) system or an amplifier. Since it is an acoustic guitar, that usually strikes some people as a bit odd. I don't use it with an amplifier much; that sort of seems to defeat the purpose of having a flat-top to me.

More often than not it has been played at people's houses or around a campfire, just picking out a few songs with my friends. Playing a guitar — or any instrument for that matter — is one of the most fulfilling pursuits a person can take up.

It has always given me a creative outlet; a way for me to get what's inside and intangible into a sound that is tangible.

Often in my life I have found myself humming a tune that develops over a period of days and then turns itself into a new melody that I have never heard before. If I am lucky, I record it and save it and later craft it into a song that I can keep forever. Other times, it just slips away from me like a breeze passing over the water: the ripples fade slowly and then disappear as if they were never there at all.

But as I was saying, the guitar was at the pawn shop and my friend came to tell me about it. It turns out he had pawned it for about $150 in cash and didn't have the money to pick it up.

About right then, I started figuring he was edging up to ask me for a loan. To be perfectly honest, I can't say I would have loaned him the money even if he had asked me. Instead, he told me, "I know you always liked that guitar of mine and I am going to lose it today if I don't pick it up. If you want it, you just pay the pawn bill and you can have it." Now that kind of struck me in a strange and sentimental way. I knew how he felt about it, too. He was as attached to that guitar as most people would be to an old dog or a good horse. "Are you sure you want to do that?" I asked him. "If you get it, at least I'll know it's taken care of and I'll know where it's at," he said. Since he was going to lose it anyway, he figured he would let me own it instead of a stranger.

I paid the pawn bill, about $187.50, as I recall. After that, he was around for awhile and then I lost track of him. I suppose he and I just ended up on different paths in life. But no matter, some things are still worth more than they cost.

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