David Fewster

MY SILVER ANNIVERSARY MODEL SUNBURST GRETSCH

SERIAL NO. 67191: A TALE OF LOSS, REDEMPTION, AND GRACE

I bought it December, 1977

as a Xmas present to myself

my first winter in Los Angeles

at a pawnshop on Broadway

in Santa Monica somewhere

between 2nd and 4th,

not long before they tore down

the whole block to put up the horrible white elephant

that was Santa Monica Place.

It cost $175,

$25 less than the white Gretsch

I had bought at the world famous

House of Guitars in Rochester, NY,

which was stolen by junkies nanoseconds

after I arrived in LA the previous August.

Neil Young played a Gretsch

in Buffalo Springfield,

and I thought having one would make

some of his luck rub off on me.

It never got played in public too much,

because I was never really in a band,

but I could endlessly wile away

the hours at home strumming

"Down by the River."

In the '90s, my then-wife figured out

you could get money from such things,

so it spent a half-dozen years or so

living at Capitol Loans in Seattle.

In May of 2002, now wifeless,

I went to try to redeem my ticket

only to discover to my horror

that the due date to rollover the loan

had been 3 days ago.

Devastated, I pushed the paper over

to the young kid behind the counter, saying

"Well, I guess this is gone now..."

Looking at the slip, the kid exclaimed

"That's your Gretsch? We were going to

try to call you--nobody would want to lose this."

And he turned it over to me.

Didn't even charge a late fee.

And mind you, these were LOAN SHARKS.

And thus, on that very day, thanks to

my Silver Anniversary Model Sunburst Gretsch

Serial No. 67191, I learned that

no matter how dark and hopeless life looked,

goodness might still be found in

unexpected places and the human quest

for decency and justice will never be snuffed out.

Which is a heavy load to put

on a 55 year-old guitar.