So, back in 1998 when I lived in Atlanta I somehow scrounged enough money to buy a Crafter acoustic electric guitar. It looked a lot like this one only not as bright blue.

I don’t recall much about my practicing or playing there, but I definitely recall playing it in Lake Tahoe. I even got an amp from a friend. It was nice to be playing a bit. The lessons in high school never really faded.

Then I moved to Seattle. The guitar once again moved with me. From place to place to place, all the way to our home of almost two years. Fast forward to October, and a chance conversation with some friends prompted me to pick it up again.

When I dusted it off a few weeks ago, tuning it was the easy part. The playing, not so much. Not only were my fingers rusty and slow, the guitar didn’t feel quite right. It was incredibly hard to push down the strings. We met up with our friends mentioned above, both musicians, and they spotted the problems right away.

The action -the little bar at the top right before the tuning heads- was very high, bringing the strings off the fret board. That means it takes a lot more pressure to hit the notes. Secondly, the neck was a bit bowed- meaning the bolt was out of alignment. On their recommendation, we took it to a luthier. His reaction was priceless:

“It would make nice wall art.”

Thankfully it didn’t cost us anything to find out it wasn’t worth repairing. But that meant we had a choice coming- how to continue practicing if we didn’t have an instrument? Guitar Center was having a sale, so we decided to go check out the guitars. I fiddled with a couple acoustics, including a rather nice 3/4 sized Martin. But none of them had quite the right feel. As I told Bayou before we got to looking, “I’ll know it when I hear it.”

I played and picked and held and coaxed chords out of numerous electric guitars. Fenders, Gretsch, and Squiers. Then I saw it. A black Les Paul Epiphone- shiny black with gold accented dials, tuning heads, and pickups. I picked her up and was pleasantly surprised to feel her lighter than others I had tried. There was an open amp with a cord nearby. I plugged her in and hit a tentative E major chord. A bright, honeyed chord echoed off the wall of guitars. It thrilled me to my core and I felt my smile broaden.

Bayou and I both played on the Les Paul for a bit. We loved it but weren’t quite sure. Bayou had a Strat that a friend of hers bought a few years back, and the friend was returning it to her in January. Did we want to wait that long to resume practicing? The price on the Les Paul was good, but Guitar Center’s sale required a food donation to a local food bank. We were woefully short on canned goods at that moment.

“Let’s go home and think about it. We can always come back with something.” Bayou agreed and we walked back to the car with my broken guitar and memories of the silken Les Paul.

On the car ride home, my mind was turning it over and over. Do I wait for the Strat to come home? Can I wait until then to pick up where I’ve left off? I felt my brow furrow as I pondered.

“What are you thinking baby?” Bayou asked. I told her I really wanted the Les Paul, but I wanted to be sure. So we decided to grab some canned goods and head to the other Guitar Center location nearby. As soon as we walked into the other location, I saw it- another Les Paul, with an amber/tobacco sunburst pattern. Amber-accented dials, two silver concealed pick ups.

A cool sales guy named Angel got me set up to try it. I told him about the other Les Paul we looked at. “This is a much better guitar, honestly, than the other one you looked at. And it’s not that much more than the one you saw at our Westlake location.”

I hooked her up to an amp and strummed. It was clearer and brighter than the other Les Paul. I played with distortion effects, adjusted everything I could think of. It blew me away- and Bayou’s face told me she heard it too. I think we knew this was it in less than three minutes.

About an hour later we had the new Les Paul and a renewed sense of possibility. We also bought the amp we liked best at a discount- it was a floor model and they didn’t have it new. I got about 40% off the price, which doesn’t suck. Here’s a photo of both- not the best quality picture, but it gives you an idea:

And every day it gets a little easier as the calluses build up. If I’m feeling adventurous I might even record a riff or two and post it here.