Promises to Keep

Last Friday I had dental issues that resulted in emergency dental surgery on Monday. I have spent the last week in a codeine induced haze that has finally started to lift in time for part-two of the surgery scheduled for 2pm Saturday. What I can’t fathom is why people become drug addicts. I mean do they really enjoy lying prostrate on the sofa in a semi-comatose state and only rising for the express purposes of tossing one’s cookies? This is fun? The whole out of body experience with no fixed centre of gravity state is extremely overrated in my mind. I just don’t get it.

I did manage to ignore the pain long enough on Wednesday to take my son Montana guitar shopping - as promised. A year ago Montana got a guitar from his grandmother as a Christmas present. He wasn’t initially happy about getting a guitar and taking lessons. He just saw guitar lessons as another intrusion into his busy schedule. That all changed at his first guitar lesson. I don’t have to tell him to practice, he just does. This summer he started to experiment and write songs though to actually gauge his progress I have to relay on his teacher or sneak down the hall and listen through the door. He has a real phobia about playing for an audience.

A month ago I took him to Steve’s Music Store in Toronto. Now Steve’s has been a guitar institution in Toronto for decades. We walked in to pick up a few add-ons for my son. My normally cocky son retreated in full disengagement and left me to deal with the service people for his needs. Not surprising for the son who thinks that the formal dress blues of the US Marine Corps is the ultimate fashion statement. Now I admit Steve’s has some kind of wild looking sales reps; lots of weird coloured hair and styles, piercings, tattoos and bizarre clothing choices but friendly and helpful once you get over the visual assault on the eyes and senses.

So taking him back to Steve’s and buying a much needed decent guitar was just not in the cards as it would require that he actively play a guitar in a semi-public setting before purchasing. As much as he wanted a new guitar he was dreading the whole experience and only with the greatest reluctance agreed to go with me. What he did not know was that I had scooped out some of the stores weeks before looking for a store that carried reputable guitars with a Montana friendly environment. I found two.

Now when Montana does not want to do something he turns into a low-level grumbler extraordinaire but he is easily bribed into a good mood with food – any kind but lots of it. Since the first of the stores was on Yonge Street just above College there are a wide variety of fast food joints. He decided on Wendy’s as he had not been there for a while. We walk in and the line is empty. I am trying to decide what I want and one of the cashier person’s screams at me to step up to the cash and order. I politely state that I will when I have made up my mind. While I am reading the menu another cashier person started hollering at me to make up my mind and order because I am holding up the line. I look at my son and turn my head to see who on earth I am holding up and low and behold; there is no one behind me and only Montana beside me. Now the third cashier gets into the act screaming that she does not have all day and hurry up. At that point I walk out without waiting for short order cooks to get into the act.

We go to MacDonald’s. The first thing the cashier says to me is; “Good afternoon, how can I help you?” I change my mind as the order is partially filled and ask if I can change it. She says, “No problem, Ma’am.” After she fills the order she hands me a tray saying, “Enjoy your meal.” I am not a fan of MacDonald’s food and call me over emotional but I am damned if I will spend my money in a place where people scream and holler at me.

Suitably bribed Montana feels ready to steel himself for the guitar shopping experience. We walk in and I send him to the back of the store to look at guitars while I get a sales person. I get a nice young man and ask for help in purchasing a new acoustic guitar for my son. He pulls a few down for Montana to try and Montana very tentatively strums. I whisper to the young man that if we chat and ignore him Montana might get more into it. The young man plays along and sure enough after a while Montana gets into it. Two hours later the pain is almost beyond my endurance and Montana is still going strong and unable to make up his mind because the entire sales staff (including the owner) keeps pulling down more guitars for him to try. Three hours later he finally makes a decision only because I refused to shell out the money for a ’68 US made Fender Telecaster. Personally, I have always preferred the sound of a Strat and find the Tele too twangie though I have often referred to Montana affectionately as my redneck son because his rather unusual taste in music for a Jamaican Canadian adolescent boy – Hank Williams, Johnny Cash, Carl Perkins, Roy Orbison, Stevie Ray Vaughan. He has two more years of lessons before I would even consider purchasing him an electric. Call me old fashion but if I am going to buy him an electric guitar, I want him to have a certain level of competence as well as something decent that will last him for years.

In the end, he settled for a Yamaha Dreadnought and because of the level of service and attention, I am sure that it will not be the last time we go there and it will be probably the first stop for any guitar needs purchases in the future - besides it beats sneaking down the hall to listen to my son play.