May 5th, 2016
Her face and hands were weathered far beyond her years. It was humbling to imagine the things she had endured and that her time probably wasn't long. Still, there was a subtle optimism in her that peeked out when Tom and I paused to look at what she had for sale. It was all garbage, literally. We did our best to feign a genuine interest as she tried to sell us broken toys, parts of old board games, and pieces of things I could have never guessed the long ago use for. Be patient. Be kind. This was her life. And she seemed to really appreciate our company.
“Can I have a cigarette?” she asked, as we lit one for ourselves.
“Sure. No problem.” Tom handed her a smoke and his zippo.
“Thank you.”
Her sales pitch soon turned into chit chat about the fine Sunday morning weather and other such things. I was waiting for that break, a silence where I could add “It was very nice meeting you. We really need to get going now.” But suddenly…hacking - gagging - choking. We saw this woman fold forward in her chair, hands by her mouth, gasping for air. What the…? We stood there dumbfounded, watching her. What just happened? Why is she choking? What the hell do we do now? After about 15 seconds of this, we saw her spit 1/2 of a lit cigarette into the palm of her hand. Then very cooly and calmly, she pinched the end of the cigarette between her fingers and raised it to her lips for another drag. Tom and I stood there in disbelief. Did we just see that?
The woman eased the awkwardness with a big smile and said “You have a guitar!!” as she looked down at the case by my side.
I thought, “This isn’t just a guitar.” This is Elisabeth, a walnut 1973 Gibson SG with a bound fretboard, Bigbsy-style tremolo, and custom electronics. Elisabeth is very dear to me. I’ll never forget the first time I saw her. I was 14 years old and she was hanging on a back wall at DJ’s Music in Berwyn. The very next day, I walked 3 1/2 miles through the snow with $100 in my pocket to put her on layaway. A month later, when I made the final payment, I brought her home, and we’ve been together ever since. Most of my time was spent with Elisabeth. We went everywhere together.
“Yeah,” I finally answered the woman “We came down here to check out some of the music.”
“I love the blues.” she said, then went on to tell us a few stories about the blues artists she’d met here at Maxwell St. and Halsted.
After a bit, she stood up from her chair and said “I want to show you something.”
“Really, we should be going now.” I answered.
“No, wait, wait. I’ll just be a minute. Wait here. I want to show you something” she said with an excitement I didn’t quite understand.
Tom and I reluctantly agreed to wait.
We watched the woman turn and walk to the boarded up 2-flat behind the table and chair she had set up on the sidewalk. She went up the few steps, through the front door, then closed the door behind her. As we waited, I was trying to make sense out of how and why she was here. This old building looked like it was abandoned by it’s owners long ago. All the windows were replaced by plywood. The stone exterior was crumbling. Graffiti was sprayed here and there. Did she just have nowhere else to go, found this abandoned building, then moved in? And I couldn’t imagine what piece of garbage she was going to bring out and try to sell to us next.
A minute or two later, the woman appeared from the door. She had an acoustic guitar in her hands. As she walked back to us, you could see her face just beaming with pride. She handled that guitar so gently and respectfully. And I did the same, when she handed it to me. She told us it was a very old guitar that she found many years ago. She had no idea who made it, but knew it was very special and certainly worth a great deal of money. It was not for sale. She didn’t tell us that, and she didn’t have to. We could see what it meant to her. It was the nicest thing she owned. This was her guitar, a guitar she wished she knew how to play better than she did. But this was her special guitar.
I looked the guitar over and played a few notes, strummed a few chords. It really didn’t look any different than any other $10 no-name guitar you could find at a garage sale or thrift store. But that didn't really matter. The value of this guitar couldn’t be found on a price tag or even in the workmanship. It’s value was in the feeling it brought to this woman. She had something. She had something special. She had something nice.
Think about this… What in the world could this old homeless woman, selling garbage on the street, possibly have in common with someone like Eddie Van Halen or Brian May or Yngwie Malmsteen? A special bond with a special guitar. I can understand that. And I think a lot of other musicians can too.