My parents had an ornamental mandolin that hung on the wall. One day at about age nine, I took it down off it's hooks and not knowing how a mandolin should be tuned, tuned it to the top four strings (double stringed and an octave higher) of a guitar based on a yellowed guitar book we had and started picking out tunes and chords from the guitar book and with some knowledge from my piano lessons.
My mother was suitably impressed enough to pawn the mandolin for an acoustic Yamaha six-string. I did pretty good with folk music of the day, "Big Yellow Taxi", a bunch of Johnny Cash, Peter, Paul and Mary, and the like, and I always had to learn the Kingdom melodies so that I could play at JW gatherings and occasionally in the "orchestra" at assemblies. Yes, kiddies, there was a time when assemblies meant live music, played by local brothers and sisters. Strings, horns, woodwinds, percussion, the lot!
In my rebellious teens, I sold the acoustic and used my part-time job money to buy a Les Paul copy and a decent Fender amp. I was just getting the hang of electric guitars when my playing days were cut short in a bizarre guitar related mishap. I was tuning up when my e-string snapped and whipped up and penetrated my exposed forearm just below the wrist.
It felt like the end of the sharp string had penetrated the depth of a thumb-tack, so just reached up to my left wrist with my right hand to pull it out. I just yanked it. I pulled two inches of guitar string out of my wrist. Then some more. My left arm went numb, I lost partial sight in my left eye, the left side of my face felt like a dentist had done a job on me with novocaine and the numbness spread across my upper chest.
Then, The Headache. Blinding. I had to shut off the light in my room and I fairly passed out on my bed with blankets wrapped around my head to block out all the light.
When I came to, all of the peripheral symptoms had faded, but I had done permanent nerve damage to my left hand. It still has strength, but reduced mobility. As I type this my right hand is responsible for 80% of the keyboard, my index and pinky fingers do all the work on the left side.
I never did get that good on the guitar, I don't fool myself into thinking the world was robbed of any talent or anything like that. I just have always missed being able to plunk and strum.
Saw Jeff Beck and B.B. King play together this summer. Guys like that play their guitar like a lover.
Eric
