Grandpa's Airline Guitar

My freshman year at college I lived with Dad and taught myself to play guitar. Weeknights I unloaded trucks at Target where they cashed weekly paychecks. I bought the first thing my 19-year-old brain thought of: a red Squire Stratocaster electric guitar. Then I bought a 10 watt Marshall amplifier and a cord from a nice Mexican running a small music shop somewhere in Holland, MI. I ran home, fired up the Marshall, strapped on the Stratocaster and plugged in, excited. Now what do I do? I stood there a second and then plucked out a few inaudible, un-harmonic chords and cringed. It sounded like a creaking garage door. Nevertheless, my music career was underway.

I started downloading guitar tabs and playing them in the basement next to Dad’s office (much to his chagrin, I'm sure). One day he brought over from the utility room Grandpa’s Airline acoustic guitar, which was sitting next to a box of his childhood nostalgia, thinking that I’d appreciate it more now that I was a strummer myself. At 19, acoustic guitars weren't cool; but it was an old and interesting noise-maker, something I've been attracted to my whole life.

I looked it over.

Grandpa’s Airline guitar needed some attention but was overall in good shape. Corroded brass strings were strung over a rosewood fretboard and a blonde maple jumbo body and were plugged by ivory-white pegs into a rosewood saddle piece. Little vintage silver nuts tuned the strings on the black headstock adorned by an oval black and gold AIRLINE logo. In the guitar’s sound hole was the manufacturer’s label, reading, “AIRLINE, JAPAN,” with the name Ben Lafayette written across it in black permanent marker. I later guessed that Grandpa bought the Airline guitar used after he moved to Milton, Fl, because of the Cajun root of Ben’s last name. Nevertheless, it added character. I tuned up the old strings and strummed out G, D, and C chords I learned. An acoustic guitar was kind of cool.

But soon Grandpa’s Airline guitar broke. Unfinished wood dries then rots from the outside in. Wood is petrophilic and hydrophobic; water and dry air rots wood while oil and humidity preserves it. Tuning the guitar’s strings brought some long-forgotten tension on the saddle bride (the rosewood tailpiece that holds the strings to the guitar’s body), which on most tuned guitars range from 500-700 pounds of pressure. Within a year after receiving the guitar, the strings pulled up the saddle bridge from the guitar’s body, splintering through a couple layers (but not all) a hole in a perfect shape of the saddle bridge itself. I took it to two different renown luthiers and both basically said the same thing: The cost of the repair would exceed the guitar’s value and that considering its vintage, it would make a great wall guitar. Come to find, Airline was a mass-produced, popular novice guitar brand sold by Sears & Roebuck from the 50s to the 80s. They were generic; Kay, Harmony, and Silvertone all branded models built by the same manufacturer. However, time, solid wood and Japan manufacture would make the Airline guitar collectable and, to me, worthy of repair.

I was a bit saddened by the breakage and swore to fix it, one day, when I had the money. That day wouldn’t come soon, so I bought a chipboard case and stuffed Grandpa’s Airline guitar under my bed.

Bored one day, years later, I pulled the guitar out and admired its old beauty. The hell with it; let's try to fix it. Grandpa would probably want the guitar to be fixed or junked, and it was just an old worthless guitar being broke, and I would at least learn exactly what was wrong with it, and maybe how to fix it if I just tried. None ventured none gained. Curiosity compelled me on, encouraged me naturally, as it always had, to find out how and why something did or didn't work, like my urge to study Literature in college. What was the big deal about books hundreds of years old that people kept reading, didn't throw out, picked up again, and passed down? I pried at Grandpa’s old guitar like I did The Brothers Karamazov, like Ivan Karamazov did at thinking, Alexey Karamazov at love, Dimitri Karamazov at passion. God knows why I did.

I went to work. I took the strings off and ripped up as gently as I could the saddle, which took a few splinters with it by aged wood glue, slightly damaging some of the body’s surrounding finish. Underneath the saddle, the body’s wood was pretty dry and thin and rotted. I cut a piece of solid maple to a fit 45 degree joint beneath the saddle’s joint surface on the body from the inside of the guitar. I glued and clamped the piece underneath the damaged area through the sound hole. This re-enforced well the dry-weakened body wood, giving the guitar enough strength to hold tuned strings under heavy pressure once again, hopefully. Next, I sanded the underside of the rosewood saddle and glued it back into place using a high-bonded epoxy. Then I sealed the edges of the saddle to the body with the left-over epoxy. I clamped and cured it for 24 hours. The next day I re-drilled the six string holes, and, excited, I restrung Grandpa’s Airline guitar with new strings.

I tuned her up and strummed out a G chord: BUZZZZ! The action was way too low and the tuned strings rested across the metal frets along the neck of the guitar! With no way to adjust the bridge height, I was stumped. Oh well, I thought, always was worth a try.

I put the guitar down and cracked a beer. But I kept looking at it from the corner of my eye. For some reason it bothered me, it irritated me to find a way to fix the string height, to make the guitar playable. I couldn't stand its idleness, its triumphant idleness, getting the better of me then laying worthless in my apartment for another couple of years. I don't know if it was man's arrogance to power over nature or what, but I kept at it.

I picked it back up by the neck and inspected the bridge once again. The bridge is an elongated, U-shaped metal strip on the guitar’s body that the strings lay over; the nut is a strip of plastic that sits in the U-shape and under the string, acting as a kind of buffer between the two. If I could only raise these two up, I think that the guitar would work fine. But how? When the strings are detached from the guitar, plastic nut falls loose from the metal bridge. If I could wedge or place something between the two, the strings would raise and play better. I thought of shaping a piece of paper or cardboard?---that would probably work, but it could be lop-sided, causing the bridge and nut to be uneven or simply warp over time from being too soft. Imagination is a beautiful thing. I can see things before they happen; a dark movie theater encircles a lighted screen in my head where I see a matchstick, with its tip cut off, laid in the silver chrome of the U-shaped bridge where the plastic ivory nut would lay, acting as a spacer, raising the strings to a playable height. Then I jammed out a blues riff feeling no blues but the blues, poor times sans depression, ill, pain.

I grabbed a match, cut it and placed between the bridge and nut and then restrung and tuned the guitar. I strummed a G chord and Grandpa’s Airline guitar rung a harmonic wood-aged tone heard only from vintage guitars.

It was fixed!

No string buzzing, it kept in tune and played easy---it was like new. I couldn’t believe a matchstick was the crowning piece to making a 40-year-old guitar sound new. Laying underneath the bridge, by looking at it, no one could tell. It lived once again to boogie at one’s command, fiddle at one’s fingertips.

I ended up loving the guitar’s feel, so much so that dust piled on my new Guild guitar. It wasn’t so much that it sounded or played better than the Guild, but that it just felt better. Sometimes only what matters is what you feel.

       Thanks Grandpa, thanks Dad.

THE MOVING WALL

Moving Wall Brochure

The Moving Wall visited VFW post 1863, Solon, OH, this weekend, July 26th - 29th. It was erected at a long 90 degree angle along the VFW parking lot just down the street from where I worked. I drove to the wall expecting maybe three-foot slabs of two-inch-thick stone standing four feet high to be engraved with names. But the wall was constructed of black-painted sheet metal sections with white screen-printed names in a serif font. I’m not sure what I was expecting; I could not have expected anyone to practically move granite slabs all over the U.S.

The Moving Wall casted a solemn mood, even on a sunny Friday afternoon. The list of names were pennant in shape, beginning with one single name from left (the last soldier), then two listed atop one another, then three listed, four, five, six..... The 90 degree corner was the crux with “1959” describing the descending order from inside out, beginning with the first soldier taken. Volunteers read names alphabetically through a P.A. system in the middle of the parking lot, struggling to get through the Jones and Johnsons while I was there. I think it would have been more natural to read them in order of the wall. Nevertheless, the readings brought a black shroud of remembrance on a sun-shot day typically basked in a haze of forgetfulness as the weekend began.

The Moving Wall

I didn’t really know anyone who served in Vietnam---no family, at least. Many, as we know, were drafted from city streets and wheat fields, classrooms and workshops, and deployed in vine-twisted jungles. Ike said, “American boys can’t fight in jungles.” And I think people know (philosophically) well the ground that they toil. My dad graduated from Wynford High School out in the Ohio wheat fields in 1974. The last drawing date of the draft in 1975 was August, 19---his birthday 19 years earlier. 19 was a colossal number for him---he passed away on June, 19. 
The names on the wall, I know none and are long gone. JOHN R WILLIAMS might as well have been the guy down the street. I saw my best friend’s dad through the white-serif capital lettering, yelling at us to keep it down because it was 2:00 P.M. and he had to work the conveyor line that night. But life is like the Moving Wall: black, solemn, gone, and full of names. And it keeps moving, giving some more life to the solemn, dead, gone.

CAMP COFFEE

Coleman aluminum percolator

Making coffee from scratch at camp is not as difficult as it seems. The hardest part is getting water to boil, so I use a white gas Coleman pump stove (I found one through Craigslist in someone’s basement for $40). I also use a Coleman aluminum percolator that you can get at any department store. Here’s how I do it:

1.    Water-fill the percolator to the full line or desired amount. I use bottled water instead of the campground spigot.

2.    Place a coffee paper filter into the basket by poking a hole in the center with the percolator stem.

3.    Fill the basket with coffee—the more the stronger. I fill it approximately ¾ full and it’s plenty black and strong.

4.    Place the basket on the stem and set the basket lid on top.

5.    Place the apparatus into the percolator and set the percolator lid on top.

Lighting a white gas Coleman pump stove is tricky but is a good way to boil water quickly outdoors. The first time I started up a Coleman stove, I was really unsure about it; so, here’s what I learned:

Coleman Stove

1.    Remove the red tank and generator assembly from storage position underneath the grill; do this by pulling up the right side and turning it towards you.

2.    Fill the red tank with white gas. Just about any sporting goods department sells white gas by the gallon. There’s a twist-off cap at opposite end the generator. Be sure replace it tightly as it will be place under pressure.

3.    Unlock the plunger by turning it counterclockwise a half turn, place your thumb over the hole on the knob, and pump the tank 35 to 50 times.

4.    Lock the plunger by turning it clockwise a half turn.

5.    Place the red tank and generator into the green stove: there are two hooks on the red tank that hang it from two slots in the front of the green stove; a hole in the stove leads the generator stem to the silver manifold.

6.    Turn the instant light stem up. Hold a struck match to the master burner while turning open its black-knobbed valve—it should light immediately; if not, turn off the valve and inspect the condition of the generator and its parts.

7.    Once lit, burn the oxygen out of the tank by turning the master burner high until all orange flame has evaporated into blue flame. Blue heat is desired.

8.    After long use, pressure in the red tank may go down. You can pump more pressure during operation. Be sure to hold the tank steady in your left hand while pumping with your right.

Once the water begins to boil in the peculator, the stem will begin to spout coffee in the glass knob on top. About 1 to 1½ minutes of spouting or brewing should be enough. Remove the peculator or turn off the stove. Caution: boiled coffee is much hotter than coffeemaker coffee. Once cooled to drinkability, camp-brewed coffee is very enjoyable outdoors. 

CADE'S COVE

John Oliver Cabin

Cade’s Cove is home to ghostly homesteads on rolling, Cherokee-made prairies inside the mountains. The 14 mile loop road passes centenarian frontier houses, barns, churches, and a mill that anyone can walk through. The two-storey John Oliver cabin was the first to be hand-built in the cove and today has more "f**k yous" and so-and-so's family is #1 carved in the walls than perhaps the whole cove. A sign out front called “Bob was Here” tells the story of a man who was fined $100 for scratching his great, imbicilic initials into the pine. When I stepped into the cabin, I smelt a rustic,  old-timey smell that took me back to my elementary school where I was paddled for climbing railings and laughing at the punishment. I also had to write sentences. I was ten and Bob wasn't.

Cable Mill

Cable Mill is as adventurous as the day it was built by hand. First sign we read on the homestead warned us of snakes living underneath the boards of the historic structures. Just beyond the sign a small barn stood with a small serpent head popping out of the floorboards---the sign was no joke. The white house use to be a general store down the road and was purchased by a woman who owned the mill and farm. The inside is virtually unchanged with the exception of more graffiti wallpapering.
The slash-and-burn prairies were perhaps the best attraction. The clearing gave way to scenic pictures of the Smokies---dark blue and grey rocks above a green tree line and yellow fields below. The fields grew crops years ago but today they are a sea of tall grass, most likely periodically mowed by the National Park Service to retain its views and quaintness. Folks here and there lawn-chaired along the loop road. It was nice.
Even though the speed limit is 15 MPH on loop road you will be tailgated. Sight-seeing and sereneness demands a slower speed. The loop road is a well-paved, one-lane road frequented with spaces to pull aside for viewing and reducing traffic (side-spaces are common in the entire park). However, it is uncommon to see tires rapping the pavement in your mirrors. It takes about 45 minutes to get to Cade’s Cove and about two-three hours to drive and see the loop. The views were awesome. We weren’t in a hurry.

Cade's Cove

THE SKYLIFT

$13 will get you a ride to the top of Boyne mountain on the Gatlinbrug Skylift. Virtually unchanged since it opened in 1953, a single bar holds you in a yellow two-person bench seat hanging from a steel cable that pulls you up. So our feet dangled 20 feet from ground, stream, then mountainside before we realized that flip-flops are not ideal footwear. On the way up we passed a teenager mimicking a girlfriend underarm with kisses. I told him to quit screwing around when he replied,

         “What, can’t I have a pretend girlfriend? Yeah, I’ll remember you, seat 38, when you get back down!”

         He weighed about as much as my left leg. But it would be classic to say that I got in a fight at the Skylift.

Just before the top a mannequine hillbilly instructed us to smile for the camera so you can buy the shot at the top. At the top, from the bench seat, we were greeted by an attendant whom asks you politely to jeticent the bench seat to the gift shop on the right. Loaded with trinkets, souvenirs, pictures, tactical knives and weaponry, one can purchase a take-home memoir of the Skylift for the pocket for the ride back down.

The Gatlinburg city lights burned energy-saving orange just as any city would from 300 feet.

When our feet hit the ground with the help of our attendant, we felt the evening spring air and the Skylift worth the money and, unfortunately at $13 a ticket, someone else did too. When we left the gate I looked for the brat kid but he was nowhere to be found, except maybe up the street at the arcade, or the hill billy golf, or the air-soft pellet gun store, or irritating their parents. Gatlinburg closes at 9:00 P.M.

CLINGMAN'S DOME

And then we turned round, and saw the tops of clouds for the first time. They’re a grey wool-like fog that move ghostly around and through mountains and over the paved path we just walked. They’re cool and tasted of dew, smelt clean and fresh and new like that of another planet, like only 6,000 feet could. We looked out as far as the clouds let us, and weren’t unhappy where they didn’t.

Clingman’s Dome is a over a mile (6,643 feet) above sea level and over a sea of grey and green deciduous trees and conifers. Just before reaching this height, we crossed the Appalachian Trail where I picked a granite stone souvenir. The paved trail ends at an elevated, spiraled walkway that leads to a circled lookout platform---unchanged from the day it was made, constructed of brown- and tan-pebbled cement. Spruce-fir forest covers the mountains peaking and rolling through clouds panoramically, offering us sky views of Tennessee and North Carolina at cloud level. We took our time.

WATERFALLS

Waterfalls. Every thousand yards gushed a waterfall; brooks, falls, rapids, steep mountain sides sliding clear water towards the Mississippi. Water rushed over and around rocks---stones to gigantic boulders (smooth and round the old rocks, rigid and square the young). Tiered stone steps climbed up under and beside each falls, making it easy for novice hikers to get close. The cool mist must have been refreshing to the Cherokee or hiker before me who breathed hard up to see these falls.

The Laurel Falls is one of the Great Smoky Mountains’ most popular attractions. About a mile of well-travelled, slope-sided dirt path winds to the falls. Its condition reminded me of many high-traffic trails found in urban metro parks. Tree trunks and rocks were graffitied with initials, hearts, dates, and scratches of claiming rights to experiences--- articulations of unsophisticated and extroverted behavior, or some insecurity. Nevertheless, the falls rushed loud and fast when we reached a small wood bridge that crossed the fallen water. The temperature dropped when we walked up and we were hit again by mist. The falls fell at least a hundred tiered feet at twenty-five feet wide. You can climb some rocks down a ways to get a better shot. There were several hikers there one week before the high season began in May. Get there the earlier, the better.