I will give you three items from different points in my youth.
Item number one: The stuffed animals.
When I was a toddler I had two stuffed animals. One was a teddy bear and the other was a bunny. I think the bear’s name was Teddy (very original, Robert) and the bunny’s name was Bunny (even more original, Robert). I think I was four years old but it might have been five. I’m not sure exactly. Without any prompting from any adults or older children, I decided that I was too old for my stuffed animals. I took them into the kitchen and explained to them that I could no longer keep them around and dropped them into the trash barrel. My mother watched me do it.
A year or so later I found them in a cabinet under the kitchen sink. My mother was apparently heartbroken watching me try to force myself to grow up (or whatever the hell I was doing) and pulled them out of the trash and hid them. She was worried that after a few days I would miss them and be a mess. If that happened she could pull them out of hiding and save the day. That never happened though. Once I found them I did keep them, but by then I was totally over them. I don’t know how long I kept them, but eventually they went away. I think the bear fell apart and the bunny was just worn out.
Item number two: Huffy Thunder Road.
I do not recall how old I was when these events took place, but it was definitely pre-teen. It was my first real bike. A Huffy Thunder Road. That model of bike came with a number plate. Most of them were number four. A lot were number 54. Mine was number 45, and I think it was the only 45 I had ever seen. I may have the 54 and 45 reversed, but I am pretty sure mine was 45.
I rode that bike everywhere. One night I left it in my next door neighbor’s yard. After I had gone in for the night one of the neighbors kindly walked it back to our yard. After that, at some point in the dead of night, it was stolen. I was crushed. It was my fault for not putting it away properly, and that made it worse. My sister had recently graduated to a 10-speed bike so I rode her Huffy Star Spangler until I could get a new bike. My new bike was a 10-speed and it was the first actual mountain bike I had ever seen. It was MASSIVE. I never forgot about that Thunder Road though. I loved that bike so much.
Item number three: Gibson Les Paul Deluxe.
My first guitar was an acoustic guitar that had belonged to my Uncle. He gave it to me for my birthday in 1986. My first electric guitar was a cheap starter model (A Hondo stratocaster copy with one humbucker pick up) that I got for Christmas, I think also in 1986. My first high end guitar was a Gibson Les Paul Deluxe that I bought from Russo’s Music in Lowell, MA in 1987. I was 16 years old. That still counts as “youth,” right?
In December 1991 my friend Jeff the drummer and I were trying to start a new band. We auditioned a singing bass player one day. He was WAY too old to be in a band with us and he wasn’t very good, but he had a ton of fun, easy, catchy original songs and we had fun jamming with him one day. There wasn’t much chance of forming a band, but it was a fun day. Afterwards I drove home and was feeling pretty beat. I took my saxophone and my gig bag into the house with me (I was in music school at the time and was a saxophone major) but left my guitar and my amplifier locked in the back seat of my car. I planned on bringing them into the house, but I never got around to it.
The next morning I went outside and found one of the back windows was smashed in and my guitar and amplifier were gone. A thief or thieves had broken into a bunch of cars on our street that night, including my sister’s which was parked next to mine. They hit the jackpot with my car. I still have not recovered. I freakin’ loved that guitar.
There you have it. Three things I was attached to and what happened to them. Part of me is still wanting to get another Les Paul Deluxe. I think I want a Junior and a Firebird and a Standard with P90 pickups first, but a Deluxe is definitely on the I-Want list.
Inside the Red Head's Head 