DIARY
How to get rid of an
unwanted guitar
by
Robert LaFrance
We all know about the 2008 debacle
when a dude named Dave Carroll had his guitar broken during a United airlines
flight. His song “United Breaks Guitars” was a big hit, mainly because the
airlines wouldn’t do anything to replace his guitar. Public relations geniuses.
Then in April of this year, United
Airlines dragged a passenger off an overbooked flight to the delight of YouTube
viewers. The man had a black eye and of course sued the airline. You’d wonder
if UA even has a public relations department.
But that’s neither here nor there.
My point is (or are) guitars, not airlines. A Fredericton performer named Mike
Bravener had his Epiphone AJ-200 guitar stolen several years ago and, against
all odds, had it returned to him after an unidentified man saw it in a pawn
shop and recognized it from social media posts.
You might say that, in each of those
cases, it was a happy ending, but now we come to my case.
For years I have had an old guitar I
have been trying to get rid of. I don’t know anything about guitars, but inside
is the name Martin D-28 and somebody named Roy or Ray Acuff has autographed it.
I left that guitar in a public
washroom in Cabano, Quebec, but an guy came rushing out to my car with the
guitar; I laid it behind a bulldozer’s laig on a construction site, but an old
lady returned it and insisted on a reward, then said she used to play with the
Tommy Dorsey Band; I left it in a car in the hot sun and assumed the guitar
would be melted when I came out from the grocery store. It sounded even better
than it had.
For months I tried to get rid of
that old guitar and then my friend Flug suggested: “Why not take a United
Airlines flight?” And so I did. I took the noon flight in an Airbus A320 from
Minto to Moncton and when I got to Moncton my guitar and case resembled, more
than anything else, a giant pancake. Would I ever get compensation for my
grievous loss?
Why, yes I did. Before the plane’s
wheels stopping smoking from the rough landing, a United Airlines rep was
racing over to the baggage carousel. “Here, take this and go buy yourself
another guitar. He handed me $19,000 in small bills. I didn’t have the heart to
tell him that I had bought the guitar in 1967 at Expo in Montreal and paid $25
for it. United is not so bad after all. Now the problem is, how are they going
to get that Airbus off that short runway in Moncton? The pilot had read his
flight plan wrong; we were supposed to be in Montreal.
***********************
A Wisconsin company, Three Square
Market, has brought us closer to a time when we won’t need to use our brains
any more.
Many reading that sentence will not
be surprised and will be saying to themselves: “Bob, you’ve functioned without
a brain for decades!” Insults aside, this is a true news story. This company
has implanted microchips under the skin of many of their employees so these
people will no longer have to carry around credit cards, bank machine cards,
identification cards of many kinds. They will just have to give the finger to
all these electronic gadgets. Just think, they can go to Burger King or Wendy’s
takeout lines and have their orders presented like after-shave lotion –
unscented of course.
The program is a voluntary one, but
you know how that goes. When a company wants an employee to do something, they
‘ask’ and if you say no, say hello to your new job as washroom janitor.
I am looking forward to more
information as time goes by. Just think of the possibilities. You get the
implant that is the size of a grain of rice, and immediately have your finger
hacked. Of course this is not the same as ‘hacked off’. Washroom janitoring
isn’t so bad anyway.
***********************
Things are getting a little scary
along Highway 105, just at the Victoria-Carleton county line. It looks as if
the government, or technically the contractor Acott Construction, is about to
tear up the old ‘pavement’ and replace it will a new road. After driving over
that ‘road’ for years, I don’t think I will know how to react when it’s smooth.
Even so, there will be still be a 5-km stretch not done, but it is not as bad a
piece of road. That part will be replaced next year that, coincidentally, will
be an election year.
It is a nice stretch of New
Brunswick along there, and I always enjoy the scenery in the Beechwood area.
What has baffled me over the years is the fact that this road, barely driveable
at times, is part of the River Valley Scenic Route.-end-
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