>>127452999
Course, back then, we weren’t thinkin’ about gigs or records or “making it big.” Nah, we were just a bunch of greasers and beatniks, hangin’ out by the diner, thumbin’ rides, tryin’ to look tougher than we felt. We’d crowd around, three chords between us, bangin’ out the kind of songs that could make the girls swoon or the cops roll their eyes. And lemme tell ya, those nights, the air smelled like burgers and Lucky Strikes, and every note I bent on that guitar felt like I was carvin’ my name into the great stone tablet of time, even if it was just the alley wall behind Joe’s Hot Dogs.
And it stuck with me, man. Every bend of a string, every cracked pick, every callus on my fingers was another chapter. That guitar became my passport, my time machine, my confessional booth. Played it through heartbreak, through road trips where the car broke down three states short of nowhere, through nights where the amps fizzled but the music still carried on, raw and naked.
Some kids ask me now, “Hey old man, when’d you decide to be a guitarist?” And I tell ‘em never did decide. Guitar decided for me. It was like catchin’ a wave you couldn’t get off of, and brother, it’s still carryin’ me, even if these fingers are slower now and the calluses don’t stick like they used to.
But I’ll tell ya this: every time I pick it up, I still feel like that kid in the pawn shop, heart racin’, sweat on his brow, knowin’ he’s holdin’ somethin’ that’s bigger than wood and strings. Something like a ticket out, or maybe a ticket in...never figured out which.
