PUTTING KEEPSAKES ON THE MARKET
Everyone should have a yard sale once in a lifetime, and I think it's time for mine. I haven't made any cardboard signs to pin up around town yet, but I've spent hours considering the many merits in such a venture. I'm sure that getting rid of old items that have lost their usefulness around the home can actually have a cleansing effect on me. Like casting off sins at a holy confession. You know, the old "Give a few, save a few!" idea, which can apply to material things as well as sins. Life without saving a few of both would be tiresome.
There's only one precaution about a yard sale I can think of and that's to put it off till my wife is away for something, like her Elderhostel retreats. I'm certainly not planning to put any of her things up for sale, only things of my own I really don't need. But it's always a touchy question with us as to what things are mine, what are hers, or what are ours. What we call ours only includes things like joint income tax, health insurance, the RV, the house and property, things that you don't usually auction off in a yard sale.
Actually, she is the one who needs a yard sale. She's very possessive about her belongings, believing they'll all have a purpose someday, if they don't already. The "If we keep it long enough it will be a collector's item" theory, which justifies hoarding to her, applies to most anything that isn't in my bedroom or the garage. I probably shouldn't call it hoarding, but that word was popular in WW II and referred to those people who bought up all the coffee, sugar, or other necessities before they were rationed. I hoarded pictures of Betty Grable posing in swimsuits, before my parents rationed them. Of course to them, ration meant confiscate.
One thing I feel uneasy about in a yard sale is getting paid for things I never use. If I know they'll serve a good purpose for someone else, why not give them away and feel better for it? Relieved of selfishness and greed!
Like my string bass, the one we bought new in the city and brought home in the back of the station wagon, with our three kids squeezed in on either side. I played it off and on for ten years, usually with our small dance band, but I stopped when the group folded. To tell the truth, people with short fingers like I have never do well playing bass. In fact, I don't recall that short-fingered musicians do well on any string instrument. All the short-fingered people I've known usually keep their hands closed or in their pockets, and seldom point.I just feel ashamed everytime I look at the bass standing up behind our piano, so out of use. It's a little out of tune, too, probably because our cleaning lady is so vigorous when she dusts the strings. Or she may even turn the tuning pegs to get at the dust there. But I can't ask her to keep the bass in tune, especially if I'm not using it. And if she complains about having to wash a dog for the neighbors up the hill, she'd likely complain about tuning a string bass, too. I really should be glad she's not the type who always dusts in the wrong places. Or the kind who can't wait to rearrange things so we can't find them. Too many cleaning ladies today are uppity and feel superior to the quiet, obedient housemaids of years past. They never come running when you call them.
The only thing I fear about getting rid of the bass is the big empty space it would leave behind the piano. And that would take a while to get used to. All we could see there would be my trumpet, my cornet, my melodica, and bare walls. I suppose those instruments should be in the yard sale, too. Plus my new guitar. My wife bought that for me at a pawnshop not too long ago, and even though it's got a fuller tone than my old one, I'm unable to make it sound in tune. And again, my short fingers don't help. Actually, the ideal guitarist should have long fingers, one for each of the six strings.
But short fingers make no difference on a trumpet or cornet. Years ago if I had any problem playing those, I'd blame it either on sore lips, or that I hadn't blown out the spit valve lately. I think most listeners preferred the sore lip excuse.
The melodica is altogether different. On that you blow air directly into the mouthpiece, and like on an accordion you play notes on the keyboard until you run out of air. I learned to take deep breaths between notes, but I would still run out of air long before the song was over. Which pleased some people, usually the ones who didn't like the melodica's piercing sound anyway.
The other thing they didn't like was when I opened the cap at the end of the keyboard and blew out excess spit. Professional musicians in the brass sections of orchestras politely turn away from an audience to empty their spit valves. But I learned something else when I was in high school band. We'd always try to blow out spit on the next guy's pants, or his crotch, especially if he was playing a solo at the time.
If I'm getting rid of all these instruments, the electronic keyboard has to go, too. It has 100 variations of sound you can get by pushing particular buttons, and each one sounds sort of like a different instrument. You can also add a drum background in slow or fast rhythm to any song you play. Or if you want the keyboard to perform by itself, like a player piano, there are 15 songs in its programmed repertoire. For certain people I know, I'd like to have it play "AVE MARIA" at a fast tango beat. It might help the yard sale if I put batteries in the electronic keyboard and have it play some of its songs as background music. Then I would explain to the growing crowd that I had once played most of these instruments professionally. At least I was a member of the local musicians' union.
The old guitar is the one I play for fun, so it's not for sale. That's been in the family over 50 years. My sister got it free after taking guitar lessons for six months. Then she quit and hasn't touched it since. So I got busy and learned to play it by ear. I got so good that my wife and I began taking it along, everywhere we went. It became a "must" at many boring parties.
But I hadn't played it for a while, and that might be why she got me a new one. She probably thought that would inspire me to play again. I admit it looks classier than the old one, but it's just enough bigger to be uncomfortable to hold. Besides, if I can play only three chords on the guitar and always in the same key, who'll bother to notice a fuller tone or classier look? It's the words to those lewd songs I sing that I want them to concentrate on. And if a few prudes get disgusted, it will probably be with me rather than the new guitar.
But I doubt if anyone would ask me to sing at the yard sale. More likely they would want to try out an instrument themselves, and I'd certainly encourage that. At the same time, however, I'd inwardly hope their talents were inferior to mine. I hate these guys who after you've played a couple hot licks on the trumpet take a turn themselves and flawlessly master the "Flight of the Bumblebee" at an up tempo. But I've yet to hear anyone play that on the bass. With or without a bow.
Two other instruments I wouldn't sell are the mandolin and ukulele. They are both used to enhance a wall and a book shelf, now that they've outlived their usefulness. I was able to learn the basic three chords on both instruments. But I didn't know any hillbilly or Haiwian songs to sing. And I feared my lewd songs might cause an ethnic problem, being sung with a mandolin or a ukulele. And anyway, by the time I got one of them tuned, most everyone would've lost interest or left the room.
The only drawback to getting rid of my old instruments in a yard sale would be that I have fond memories for each of them. I looked forward to friends watching me put my bass inside our tiny Volkswagon Bug. And the cornet is a "loaner" from the music store people who lost the one I took for repairs, the one my wife found at a high-classed junk store. But that was five years ago, and the store hasn't called back yet. That's still fun to rationalize about.
And I'll never forget when my friend helped me shorten a small metal tube on the trumpet, so it would be in tune when I used my cornet's smaller mouthpiece. You can't see the hacksaw marks as long as you stay on my left side when I'm playing. You are more likely to see me puff my cheeks. That's eye-catching from either side.
I puff my cheeks slightly playing the melodica, too. Music teachers are against doing this on any wind or brass instrument. But when I do it, it makes me feel like Louie Armstrong or Dizzy Gillespie. I may not sound like them, but our facial features are somewhat alike.
But all these memories might haunt me terribly, after I got rid of the instruments at a yard sale. I'd want to remember who had bought each one and hope that person befitted the instrument as I had. I'd wonder if the guy with the bass has short fingers, if I'd forgotten to notice. Or would whoever bought the trumpet use the spit valve rudely? Or would the person with the cornet look good with puffed cheeks?
And it's only fair that the new owners encounter the same kind of pleasures that I did. And the same problems, too. They should go through the bittersweet experience of sounding their best when there's no one to listen. Then, if they decide to be full©time musicians, they must realize that's a difficult way to make a living today. When I decided in my early 20s that music was not the career for me, I strangely felt liberated. The disillusions of the past and the uncertainties of the future just faded away. I let music became a passtime I could enjoy whenever I felt like it.
On second thought, I'll put off the yard sale. I really need to give my instruments another chance. That probably makes me as possessive as my wife, only my material things are more intimate. I certainly don't want to put them in the wrong hands, either. In fact, any hands but mine would be the wrong hands, whether they have short fingers or not.