Some Strings Attached

By Jim Hagarty
2012

Finally

Life is funny. I’ve played acoustic guitars for 43 years but because I play left handed, I have never played an electric guitar. I’ve never wanted to own one but I at least have always wanted to try playing one.

I told a musician friend of mine this on Tuesday. On Friday, I went to a jam session at a trailer park nearby and and a guitar picker I’d never met before joined the group. He was renting the same trailer my family and I rented for a week two years ago. He is a great guy, an amazing guitarist and, oh yeah, left handed.

He opened a case, brought out a beautiful, left-handed, solid-body electric and placed it right into my hands. I sat down and played two songs on it.

I am on a roll and now I need to start telling people, “You know, I’ve been driving cars for 45 years but I have never OWNED a Corvette.” Then I’ll just sit back and wait for another amazing trick of Fate.

Author: Jim Hagarty

I am a 72-year-old retired journalist, busy recovering from a lifelong career as an unretired journalist. This year marks a half century of my scratching out little fables about life. My interests include genealogy, humour and music. I live in a little blue shack in Canada and spend most of my time trying to stay out of trouble. I am not that good at it. I also spent years teaching journalism. Poor state of journalism today: My fault. I have a family I don't deserve, a dog that adores me, and two cars the junk yard refuses to accept. My prized possessions include my old guitar and a razor my Dad gave me when I was 14 and which I still use when I bother to shave. Oh, and my great-great-grandfather's blackthorn stick he brought from Ireland in the 1850s. I have only one opinion but it is a good one: People take too many showers.