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How a long-lost banjo from upstate New York made its way into the hands of the island’s worst player.
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Let me get this right out of the way: I am a terrible, terrible banjo player. For anyone who knows me, this will be the least surprising sentence they read all week, if not a completely inexplicable head-scratching curiosity that just parachuted in from a neighboring universe. It would be like me announcing, “Hey, everyone, the roster for my NASCAR pit crew is almost finished!” or “Well, it’s settled, I’ve just joined the cast of ‘Glee!’” or “Watch me hit these two free throws IN A ROW!”
Prior to a few weeks ago, I’d never played a banjo. I’d never thought about playing banjo. I’d never written a sentence with the word “banjo” in it, except for my high school reports on Earl Scruggs and those occasional letters to my relatives in the Appalachians without power outlets or last names. Frankly, there was a considerable period of time in which I confused “banjo” with “mandolin.” I don’t play banjo, is what I’m saying.
But a few months ago, we accidentally came into possession of a banjo, an old, well-marinated but gorgeous piece that had been unearthed in some long-lost corner of my wife’s grandfather’s basement and sent to us by her grandmother, who figured we were the nearest relatives who could make some use of it.
The banjo, as you might suspect, was in the state of considerable dilapidation you’d expect of an object which had spent the last four or five presidential administrations entombed in a hard-toaccess basement in damp, frozen upstate New York. The strings were but a pleasant memory, there were metal things obviously missing, there were colors on it that weren’t supposed to be there (mostly light greens). But — and you know this if you’ve ever been cleaning out a basement or attic and come across a mystical, misplaced-looking object that looks like it really should be somewhere more insulated — it just had this look of being something. I’m not one of these Discovery Channel antique-show experts or anything — if I’m like anyone on the Discovery Channel, it is one of the “Swamp Loggers” — but it looked cool and I wanted to fix it.
So, in keeping with our long-stated devotion to stocking a house with a treasury of musical instruments we have no intention of ever learning to play, we thoughtfully put it in the laundry room and left it for about a full year. I didn’t say we were efficient.
But after THAT, I ran it down to John’s Music on New Orleans Road, where I had taken what my instructor has no doubt begun referring to with a smirk as “guitar lessons” some years ago. (I owned a guitar. I strummed strings with my fingers. But I would not describe what I was doing as “playing guitar.”) We stop by now and again to wander around and pretend like we have any idea what questions to ask (“So, does this whammy bar with the amplifier declaration frets person action?”), and because I deeply enjoy repeating the phrase, “FOR THE LOVE OF GOD HANDS OFF THE DRUM SET” to my six-year-old for 20 minutes at a time, so I thought they might be able to help, which they did. In about four hours the thing was cleaned up, re-strung and brought home in perfect shape to begin helping us immediately slaughter beginners-level bluegrass numbers. Thanks, guys. If you have any tips regarding free-throw shooting, please email me.
No, really: Email Jeff at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it .
