The Dove

Here it is, my beloved new guitar. The Epiphone Dove. I was too lazy to take a picture and upload it to the computer so I just snagged a picture from the Internet. Maybe I will add a picture of me actually playing it at a later date. The story of how I came to own my Dove goes something like this......

My daughter had been taking piano lessons for a few months and practicing at home on a keyboard when I decided that it was time to get a piano. My Mom had decided long ago not let me have the piano my Grandmother had bought for me because she liked to use it to display family photos. The guilt of this decision finally set in when she realized that now it would be neigh unto impossible to get this piano to me. She vowed to do whatever it took to get me the piano. This plan involved loading it in the back of a pick-up and driving it from WA to NM. Yea.....not good. So, I excused her from her guilt and bought a new black upright with a matte finish. Beautiful. Anyway I decided that now was the time to make nice with the piano and learn all over again. Long story semi- short...I have no patience especially for something I should already know. So, time to pick a new instrument.

The guitar. I decided that I really couldn't be sure if this was some sort of short lived whim so buying an inexpensive guitar would be the way to go to relieve my guilt should I decide that playing the guitar was not for me. Where did I buy said guitar, Costco. It was a 99 dollar deal complete with tuner, stand, case, capo, strap etc.... So, I get all excited and ready to learn to play with my "guitar for dummies" in hand. I start playing and realize that this guitar is a p.o.c. I hate it and decide that I just can't bring myself to play on such a waste of materials. This of course prompts the dream I had where Keanu Reeves buys me a new guitar which is told in detail in an earlier post. Guitar goes untouched....... Still sitting untouched..... I mention my dilemma to my Dad who suggests that I should take it in and see if perhaps it is just in need of some new strings. OK Dad. Still sitting. Honestly, I was too big of a chicken to take the darn thing in because of several reasons. 1. "you actually paid money for this?" 2. the store would have some flashing midlife crisis siren that went off when I walked in the door. 3. not cool enough to play the guitar. I don't smoke, drink, never been to rehab, not addicted to drugs, no tats, basically your average straight laced kinda girl that feels like a dork in the guitar store. So, me taking the guitar in to get looked at was not going to happen no matter how sad my poor guitar looked just sitting in the corner of my room.

Along comes Dad. My parents came for a visit and my Dad made it his mission to get me playing the guitar. So we lugged my embarrassment of a guitar to the guitar store for it to be diagnosed. Prognosis, put it out to pasture. Before we had even taken the guitar in my Dad was having me look at guitars on the Internet with all the enthusiasm of a boy at Christmas. So I was sent into the humidity controlled room where the guitars were kept. Now, I am already feeling like a major dork for all the above mentioned reasons and now my Dad is telling me that I have to find "the" guitar. He told me that buying a guitar was a personal thing and that you had to meet and fall in love. I explained that I wasn't looking for a commitment, I was just looking to mess around. Please Dad, you're killing me! I wasn't allowed to just point to a guitar and say "OK, I'll take it." I had to sit down and play several of them for the falling in love part. Meanwhile the guy helping us with the guitar purchase was after the manner in which I described above. Who needed intermediate breaks to take a drag. He probably took this break as an opportunity to laugh at me and marvel at his tattoos. :) lol. So, with another guy in the room testing out guitars too, I gave into my Dad's protests and strummed away on all the guitars in there that he was willing to pay for.

So, in the end, I ended up with the guitar my Dad had envisioned for me. Did I fall in love, no. But, it made my Dad happy to buy the guitar he thought was meant for me and it made me happy to have a real guitar. I'm in the beginning phase of guitar playing and I'm too naive to fall in love with a guitar from 1st touch. I liken how I feel about my guitar now to giving birth to a child (stay with me here). I never had the light shining down, angels singing moment when my children were born. The bonding process was something that happened over the first few weeks of their lives until they were forever etched deeply into my heart. So, I think that as time goes on I will become more and more attached to my guitar. My Dove will always hold a special place in my heart because my Dad bought it for me and because it is the guitar I learned to play on.

7/22/08

So, I was in the middle of moving out of this house when the picture was taken so I forgot that I even had it. Me, my Dad and my Dove.