humility

My wife, Laura, has many gifts. One of them is the determination not to allow her home to be cluttered. I think she is imagining a day that no longer seems so unimaginable, when we will be relocating someplace smaller, and asking ourselves how we ever accumulated so much stuff, and why we never thought about lightening the load along the way. I've been watching her apply this discipline to our home, while guarding my own secret hoard of questionable junk. My piles are packed into the closet of my basement office. It is a gold mine in there, or maybe a trash heap. It depends on your perspective. This past weekend I finally started to let my mind question the gold mine concept, and begin to consider if the closet is actually a trash heap. How many different kinds of adapters for obsolete computers and audio accessories are really necessary to keep for the coming apocalypse? How about reams of white paper and blank cards and empty 3-ring binders? What about four pairs of bookshelf speakers from a time that our home proudly sported an awesome central wired stereo system with independent sound in each room? What about boxes of memorabilia documenting twenty years of major church building projects and a name change for our congregation? Something got into me on Saturday morning.

I started dumping.

Kyle, our pet house rabbit who roams our finished basement, inspected every growing pile with fascination. Laura was amazed to see the loads that came up the stairs, forming stacks alternatively for recycling, trash, or charity. Even my bookshelves were lightened, with inspirational resources to be shared with the local re-entry ministry. At one point I found my 40-year-old high school athletic letter jacket. I just declared victory by moving it to a different closet where I'll have to confront it at some future time.

Then I found something that I had forgotten, and a lesson in humility that I had once learned and had never really been able to forget.

There in the back of my closet was an empty and beaten-up 1973 Fender bass guitar case. It was tattered and covered with the remnants of stickers. I brought it out into the light for examination and the memories came flooding back.

I was trained as a classical string bass player, but early in life I began to explore the bass guitar and all of its opportunities and promises. In high school my second bass guitar purchase was a beauty. It was a slightly used 1973 Fender Precision fretless bass with ebony fingerboard and sunburst finish. It was stunning and it served me well for many years and across many venues. As my bass guitar collection grew, the original 1973 Fender Precision fretless with ebony fingerboard and sunburst finish became an occasional loaner instrument. That's how I lost the bass forever. At a point of misplaced trust, I loaned the bass to an older player going through tough times, and, at a point of poor judgment, he pawned my 1973 Fender Precision fretless with ebony fingerboard and sunburst finish for cash and that was the end of that.

So now, years later, all I had was the empty case. Despite owning several more bass guitar cases, I had never been able to let go of the empty 1973 Fender bass case that used to contain the 1973 Fender Precision fretless bass with ebony fingerboard and sunburst finish…not that I'm still bitter about losing it.

Seeing the case in the back of the closet this past weekend did not inspire anger about the the loss of the instrument. I'm over it (mostly).

Instead I recalled a lesson in humility involving that case.

In 1988 Laura and I moved from our beloved Madison to Los Angeles for me to begin a three-year stint as a postdoctoral research fellow at Caltech in Pasadena. Elizabeth was born there in 1989, but 1988 was full of exploring and learning and all kinds of music. This in addition to science and new friends and serving in a new congregation. The music was delightful. I played in way too many different ensembles, from classical to rock to gospel.

At some point in the fall of 1988 I confronted the need for some kind of decent new bass amplifier.

It was on a quest for such an amp that I set out one Friday night for nearby Studio City California, where big west coast music stores were to be found. These big stores had huge supplies of the latest gear and were always full of aspiring and seasoned rock musicians looking to buy, sell or trade. I was intoxicated by the idea of hanging out in such a store, seeing and being seen, playing loudly and conspicuously through amazing amps and then maybe buying something impressive. Maybe. So, it was on that quest and with a sense of the excitement of a midwestern musician entering the promised land of a Hollywood-area music store that I set out. In the back of our maroon Ford Escort station wagon was my Fender Precision fretless bass with ebony fingerboard and sunburst finish in its road case. The bass was coming along so I could play it through various amps as I shopped with the big-time rockers. I secretly imagined myself laying down some tasty amplified riffs and the room maybe quieting a bit and long-haired, road-worn musicians taking notice and wandering over to hear the chops of this new skinny mystery bassist as he lay it down. I was on that page as I walked into the showroom. Appearances did not disappoint. The place was packed and long-haired tattooed rockers were everywhere. A huge stack of bass amps sat in the distance. I started to imagine how this was all going to go. I smiled to myself.

I strolled into the room carrying my bass in its 1973 Fender case, the same case excavated from my closet this past weekend, the same case in the photograph above. I felt good. This was going to be quite the night. Just then I caught the eye of a clerk heading in my direction and I began to plan my inquiry about setting up to play my personal 1973 Fender Precision fretless bass guitar with ebony fingerboard and sunburst finish through his beast bass amps so I could make the most awesome impression decision.

The clerk came right up to me, wide-eyed, and I swear he shook my hand and declared loudly, as if trying to get everyone's attention

"You are JIM MAHER!!"

I was speechless for a moment.

How could he know me? He didn't look familiar? Did I look familiar? Did he know me from my musical career back in Wisconsin? From some recording I had done? From friends that had talked about me and my great bass playing? This was so totally amazing! Here I was walking into a store near ground zero in the rock universe, thousands of miles from my original home, and the guy already knows me! My mind raced to consider which of my past exploits could account for my fame having already reached Los Angeles before me. After a pause I asked the clerk how it was that he knew my name.

He looked and me and smiled wryly.

"Dude, you've got your name stenciled in gold spray paint on your case."

Me:  silence.

I listened to a different guy play through some bass amps and slunk out after buying a small $100 unit. I had been 6'4" tall when I walked in. I had trouble seeing over the dashboard driving home.

If you look closely in the photo of the case from last weekend, you can still see the stenciled letters.

I never forgot that night.


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