The Ventura Guitar Story...

I bought my first guitar in about 1975 or so. It was a Kay acoustic. It cost maybe $50 bucks brand new and it was a horrible, unplayable, poorly intonated instrument. I was already a pretty good tuba player at the time but I knew nothing about guitars and would only realize the terrible quality of this instrument when I was eventually exposed to playable instruments. Kay had made pretty good guitars at one time but this was not that time and some years later I turned that guitar into a planter with an ivy growing out of it. It really was not good for that either.

Naturally, with such obstacles my guitar playing did not progress and interest waned. In fact overall musical interest had waned. I had dropped out of music at the college and at the time I did not own a tuba so for several years I had no instrument to play other that that awful Kay. 

 By 1980-82 my more studious friends were graduating from college. I was doing ok with a good blue collar Union factory job. We were all sitting around one summer afternoon, not a cell phone in sight living our best lives and watching a recent grad, Kent, pack his belongs on a motorbike as he set out into the world with a new degree, for a new life and for a job. These were the days when a motorbike was a mode of transportation and not a lifestyle choice. 

Space was limited and Kent was selling items he could not pack. He asked if anyone wanted his guitar for $40. This was the days before Venmo and I had $20 in my pocket, a princely sum at the time that was an adequate amount for all entertainment, all weekend. I told Kent I would pay $20. He declined. Because of Venmo I have since set a personal best of $7000 for an impulse buy and I have not regretted it. 

Kent resumed packing and after a period where I assumed the deal was off he came back and said I'll take the $20. I paid and he rode off on a tidily packed bike. At the time $20 would probably purchase 40 plus gallons of gas. I like to imagine that money took him a ways down the road.         

I guess in a way this guitar, a gut string Ventura Bruno Model 1582 took me down the road also. A friend had a similar guitar, the gut strings were easy on the fingers and we sat on the front porch of the old Lagoon House, a place where songwriters and rock stars such as Rodney Crowell and Glenn Frey were rumored to have polished their tunes during their tine in Nacogdoches. We polished nothing but drank beer while howling Neil Young songs at the moon. Pushing 80 years old Neil's voice is still an anodal howl but I promise when I cover Neil mine is worse.

All these years later I have some pretty good guitars including this garage sale Suzuki that Bill Cooney found. I am in a declutter mood and I thought unlike the Suzuki which I have actually played in public maybe I should get rid of the Ventura since it just hangs on the wall. 

A little internet research shows that the Ventura is a 1960s vintage and generally sells for several hundred dollars. My wife, who thinks I have too many guitars, convinced me that I have more history with this guitar than the Suzuki and if I'm getting rid of a guitar that should be the one and maybe one of the kids would want it for their kids. I am now thinking I should do a fix up job with new and better tuning keys, strings and a good polish.          

I'm not sure I know what kind of guitar kids want these days but looks like this one will be with me a bit longer. When I took this down from it's hanging place the guitar body was full of these plastic monkeys from some kind of game when you see how many monkeys you can link by their tails in a hanging formation. I don't know who done that but like any crime they say you should suspect family members first. 

After Kent took off on the bike I never saw or heard from him again. I don't recall his last name. I knew a couple of his cousins and it's possible I could find them on the internet but we weren't that close and they might ask why

 which would be good question. The Kay guitar planter eventually reverted to the earth from where it's parts came. I never got very good at Neil Young songs but I did know Double Date Debbie that Rodney Crowell sings about in the tune I linked and this guitar still hangs on my wall.