#14: I Know You Rider

(cover)

Meaning accrues

In the last austral summer of the Before Times, my youngest son was planning an epic journey: north from Buenos Aires through the Argentine provinces of Santa Fe, Santiago del Estero, Salta and Jujuy, then onward to Bolivia, Chile, Peru and Ecuador. It would not be a swank holiday. He’d be travelling by bus, hitchhiking, staying in campgrounds or hostels, and surviving on empanadas and yerba mate.

It’s a right of passage for many young Argentines to make such a trip. In January and February bus stations all over Latin America are full of mochileros. Backpackers: the translation is accurate, but it doesn’t capture the particular onda (vibe) of this demographic. Banish any images you may have of well-outfitted Rocky Mountain trekkers. This group moves unsponsored across the continent, unmarked by ostentatiously branded gear. If they don’t look like mendicants and vagabonds when they set out, they do by the time they return. So I was aghast when M. asked if he could take Henry Hopkins with him. 

Henry is a guitar—more precisely, a 1943 Martin 0-18 on permanent loan to my son, and named after the fellow who etched his name and social security number into the pickguard. The thing looks like it’s been through the war. And maybe it has. Did Mr. Hopkins inscribe his name there in the event of separation in some theater of operations? We’ll never know. But I like to think they returned together. In any case, Henry Hopkins has already seen enough action.

Henry Hopkins

But it’s not an unreasonable request. Every gathering of mochileros will have in its midst at least one guitarra criolla (the kind of nylon-stringed instrument used in traditional tango and folk genres such as chamamé). They sit around campfires singing everything from Pink Floyd to Silvio Rodríguez. It’s beautiful. I’m all for it. So, wanting to oblige, I went down the list of candidates. None appeared, until I arrived at where I began.

My first real guitar was a brand new Yamaha G60A classical, a gift from my parents on my 10th birthday. It’s the guitar I took to my first lessons. Every Wednesday I’d carry it down to the Music House in Port Washington, NY. Of all the guitars I own, there are only a few I could never part with. The Yamaha is one of them. I have it right here, still in that ill-fitting chipboard case—the one that caused the abrasions. 

Twenty minutes each way, once a week: all of that walking took a toll. While the case swung in sync with my gait, the poor guitar, along for the ride, was sliding back and forth. It didn’t take long to notice what had happened. But the damage had been done. I was horrified. This was after all a new instrument, pristine when I received it. Also, it represented an important acknowledgement by my parents that there was no standing between me and the guitar (which they viewed, not without some justification, as a gateway drug).

In that context the abrasions meant one thing. In late December 2019, with M. preparing for his trip, they meant something else. I went into my office, took the Yamaha out its case, flipped it over in my hands. There they were, those marks, signs pointing me down the walkable boulevard, memory opening. It’s a wide chasm between then and now, there and here. For a moment it feels like I’m going to fall in, put the past (and the guitar with it) on nostalgia’s dead pedestal. 

But M. was waiting, with whatever meaning he had in store. I emerged from the office, guitar in one hand, case in the other. “Here ya go, Buddy. Take this one. But make sure you keep a t-shirt or something in there, so it doesn’t rub against the case”. He got as far as Guayaquil, Ecuador before turning back, trying to keep ahead of the pandemic. The Yamaha returned with some new scratches: signs of life.*

*Addendum, 7/11/23. M. informs me, between convulsions of laughter, that I did not in fact let him take the Yamaha to Ecuador and back. He asked. I said no. That’s right folks: I am an unreliable narrator.

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Finally, here’s an outtake from my last record. It didn’t seem to fit in with the other songs. And I never got a vocal take I liked. That includes this one! Meanwhile, Lucy Kaplansky and I were in the studio with Larry Campbell, recording another record (Tomorrow You're Going). They knew exactly what to do with it. I’m glad it found a home there. And for those of you who pay attention to these things, the guitar I’m using here is a 1952 Martin D-18, one of Henry’s cousins.