Little Adventures

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Guitar

In the fall of 1965, I became a junior at Penn State. After two years of struggle I had finally adapted to college life, and that term I moved out of the dorms and into my first apartment. After eighteen years of uproar at home with five other children, and two years in a noisy college dorm, at long last I had large amounts of peaceful, quiet time at my disposal. I was doing well enough in school by then, but had no girlfriend or other extra-curricular activity to fill my spare hours.

One evening I visited my brother, Clem, over at his dump on Pugh Street. There I met a wild man, named Bill Butler, who was playing a guitar and singing familiar songs, but with a novel twist… he had changed the words. To a Peter, Paul and Mary tune, he sang a song called Flora Freed, about how, in high school, he stuck a rival for Flora's affections in the thigh with a pencil and ended up in detention hall. To the tune of Palisades Park, he sang about sneaking into the Clearfield County Fair and being thrown out on his ear.

I wanted to play guitar and make songs like this, so Bill kindly gave me my first guitar lesson that very evening. I went out and bought an old Stella guitar for $12, practiced a lot, and eventually got good enough to accompany Bill as he sang his songs. Unfortunately, I also discovered that I could sing no better than I had in eighth grade, when my voice changed from bad to worse and the nuns asked me to retire from the church choir.

Maybe I couldn't sing, but my interest in playing never diminished, and I soon began learning a symmetric way of playing, where the strings were plucked with the fingers and thumb of my right hand. This "pattern picking" style of playing was much favored by folksingers of the time, and I spent many enjoyable hours mastering it. Playing my guitar for fifteen minutes at the end of each day became such a habit that I have never shaken it, nor have I ever wanted to.

In the late seventies, I did finally begin writing new words to old tunes, and discovered that people would excuse my grating voice if the song was funny enough. I wrote about Christmas shopping, about how Pam got her Ph.D., and about computers. Just a few years ago, I became interested in the blues and wrote new lyrics to a number of old blues tunes. When I Was a Kid (below) was one of these, written for Pete on the occasion of his fourth birthday. He liked the song, but, with the folly of youth, seems to this day to distrust the facts portrayed in this ditty about my early school life.

I rarely play for anyone save myself, but once in a blue moon I do embarrass myself by playing and singing at a family reunion, a wedding or a party. Two or three times on these occasions, someone has come up to me afterward and asked how they might learn to play like me. This always makes me feel good, and provides me with an opportunity to make repayment for those evenings, now so long ago, when Bill Butler took the time to teach me C, A minor, F and G.

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When I was a Kid

When I was a kid, life was hard,
A pack of wolves lived in our back yard.
I'd run for school at the break of dawn,
Those wolves would look up and I'd be gone.
So if walkin' to school isn't much fun,
Just remember - I had to run.

When I was a kid, it was ten miles to school,
And only the rich kids could afford a mule.
I'd wade through snow that came up to my head,
Horses couldn't make it, but I did.
So if its cold and there's a bit of a breeze,
Just remember - I used to freeze.

When I was a kid, the teacher was cruel,
She'd often hit me with her golden rule.
I could not talk, and I couldn't laugh,
She'd take my toys and break them in half.
So if you do bad and don't get gold stars,
Just remember - I got scars.

When I was a kid, I gathered berries for lunch,
or stale dried corn from my pockets I'd munch.
I drew up water from a nearby well,
Where the water was red and tasted like hell.
So if you don't like your peas or your figs,
Just remember - I ate twigs.

When I was a kid, and the sun had set,
I'd pack my books and go home to sweat.
I'd clean the barn for most of the night,
Then do my homework by a candle's light.
So if your day is long and hard to accept,
Just remember - I never slept.