I have two brothers, 11 and 12 years my elder. As a child, the younger of the pair developed a musical inclination, an artistic skill that, to this day, no one in my family can properly trace the origins of, for we Bogles are not what you would call a musical clan.
When my brother was in 4th or 5th grade, a young lad of 10 years or so, he took up the acoustic guitar. This was in the early 70’s, so you can paint the wavy Graham Nash hair portrait yourself pretty easily. My parents, decidedly middle class still at this point in their lives, bought him a starter guitar to, well, start with. It wasn’t a toy – did they make toy guitars back then? – but it also wasn’t even close to a studio-grade axe. He was 10 for christ’s sake. He got what he got. And he was happy with it. Until he wasn’t.
I was told that he was enjoying his guitar, playing it at home and getting better until one fateful occasion, very early in his career as a future heart-on-his-sleeve singer-songwriter, when my middle brother took his guitar over to a neighbor’s house. They were family friends, which meant they had kids too, kids close in age to my brothers. Such is the way people still gravitate towards each other. My middle bro, guitar in hand, didn’t even get to strum a power chord that day. Not a single note was plucked before the father of his schoolmate poked fun at the guitar. Time isn’t always kind on memories, but I’ve heard that this dad said something along the lines of “Look at that piece of junk. It’s a stupid toy guitar.” I can imagine this crude piece of unwanted commentary was followed by a bit of laughter, the kind of gross chortle vomited out of the mouth holes of unfunny people after saying something they deem hilarious.
Insensitive? Sure. Mean-spirited? Yes, but probably not intentionally so, not that that matters one bit. The comment was rude and unnecessary, a stupid bit of adult assholery. Adults can often be assholes, to each other and to kids. Sometimes they are assholes without knowing or caring about the impact their asshole remarks have and will continue to have. These are the quiet little scars most of us have that are never again discussed but also never totally forgotten.
Seemingly innocuous remarks made by adults and directed at children are capable of having ripple effects that outlast those from the even biggest of waves. Two off-the-cuff sentences said in the general direction of my brother over 40 years ago had a dramatic and permanent impact: he never touched that, or any other guitar, again. Never. Frankly, I’m half surprised he didn’t shun rock music for disco on the spot, to further distance himself from the instrument.
One asshole remark made a few years before I was born robbed me of hearing my Graham Nash-haired middle brother strum me to sleep with his rendition of “Our House.”
Asshole adults suck.
Don’t be an asshole.
Image of acoustic guitar courtesy of jiggoja at FreeDigitalPhotos.net
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