Guitar Case

Elmer the husky and I cruised the neighborhood in the late morning on a dry weekday. We've just started our second year together and his salubrious effects on my mental and physical health continue to pile up.

Elmer stopped and seemingly prepared to take a Ted Cruz. It was then I noticed a hardshell guitar case a few feet away on the curb.

The Ted Cruz was a no go so I walked Elmer over to the case.

It was a classic, a beauty: a tan hardshell case from the 70s. Ovation was lettered on both sides. Ovation, the famed round-bottomed acoustic guitars. A professional's case, scratched and scuffed from endless gigging.

Not a sticker on it.

Was the guitar inside? No way! It couldn't possibly in there. No one gives away an Ovation guitar on the street.

A homeowner obviously set the case outside to give it away. Maybe rock had died for him as it had for me many years ago. Maybe the guitar player died and his partner wanted it gone. I went through a dozen scenarios of the case's appearance on the curb.

I had to see if the guitar was inside. If it was in there, I was taking it home and would start playing the guitar again.

Empty!

Still it was such a fantastic case, living antique, and better than the generic black hardshell case securing my guitar, one I never play anymore.

Or I would give it to my special musician friend, a singer songwriter who should be on the charts (are their still charts?) but got waylaid by life. Her time will come.

I picked up the case by the handle. What balance! It practically glided in the air.

No, I couldn't take it. I knew within minutes a homeless man or woman would come along and put it to non-guitar use, a kind of rock and roll suitcase to transport possessions and keep them dry as they kept on surviving or however they defined it.

I set the case down on the curb. Elmer and I walked away.

The next morning the case was gone.