per minute...

So I've decided upon a guitar.


Brownsville Les Paul Standard- Ebony, Gold, Magnificent.

I'm impressed with the ease with which I've picked up the jargon, and my eagerness to buy the thing and begin playing is palpable. I wonder what the first song that I play will be...

My father bought a turntable while we were in the store. As soon as we got home he was down in the basement digging up a couple of large boxes of 78 records, and he brought them upstairs to his office, where we unpacked the turntable and plugged it in. I began leafing through the collection carefully.
"Careful!" I suppose the grin on his face negated the aggravation of his usual nagging, and I apologized quickly.
I came upon a series of records with red hand-written platter labels, all marked, "Jerry, before he went into the Army. Very Good," and dated 1943.
Could it be?
I wondered what could be on these records, how had he been captured, what could I gather about him?
"Is that 'My Buddy'?" my father asked.
"Yeah."
"Gimme."
He paused as he looked the record over, perhaps a bit curious himself what he would hear, though I imagine he knew very well. The needle went down, and music hissed forth from the turntable speaker. An introduction, and then, a warbling whistle in the tune of the song, fluttering around the notes of the instruments, drenching the room with questions and memories. It was my grandfather.
Later on, as dinner ended, I finished my panini, and rubbed the grease and crumbs from my middle and forefingers with my thumb, and my mother laughed.
"He does what you do, Chick." Dad Grinned.
"Sure does." I looked across the table and it was as if mirrored.
Jerry died two decades or so before I was born. My father was a bit younger than I am now when that happened. I see so much of him in myself, and I imagine so much of that is Jerry's as well, but until today it had only been in stories and daydreams on photos and desk-papers that I could really feel I had any idea what the man was all about. I really knew nothing of him. But today I shared the room with him for a while.
My father said this evening that he hasn't been this happy with a purchase he has made in years. I think he's down in his office right now listening to the original recording of Carousel on the thing...

No fat-bottomed, flabby-faced, pot-bellied, baggy-eyed bastard'll boss him around...