Snapshot of a 14 year old dreaming...

After a couple of weeks of trying I finally got through to Kadir yesterday morning just before I left for work. He told me he was at his mom’s place with his pal Chris studying for his mid-terms.

I asked if he had a few minutes to talk and he replied “Not really”, and not wanting to push him I told him I loved him and was thinking about him and let him go. But before I did he asked me the question I knew was coming sooner or later.

“Can I borrow your bass?”

I bought the electric bass from my friend John Gogo (a gifted Vancouver Island musician) in the early 90’s (about the time Kadir was born) when he visited us in Kits, along with a couple of drum machines, and I used all of them in quite a few home recordings over the next couple of years. The bass is a Fender clone and has seen better years but it sounds good and is quite functional.

After the visit with Chris a couple of weeks back when they jammed using the bass I figured that they sounded pretty good as Chris is a junior whiz on guitar and Kadir seems to be a one-note-at-a-time man. He is definitely interested in rock and roll and pop melody and when he played along with Chris on bass I could see the makings of a teen group in embryo.

After initial hesitation and my comment that he tends not to take good care of things he is given (the little acoustic I bought him lies ruptured and dormant at his brother Ky’s, the electronic tuner disappeared into the bowels of the Co-op, and his electric mini-Stratocaster style guitar gathers dust on it's stand in his room out of tune while he fiddles on his computer games) I relented.

“I’ll do it!” I gave back. End of conversation. The next move is his. He says he is going to carry it in a gig bag but I don’t think he’ll have one big enough.

My plan is to present it to him as a gift and ask him to promise that in return he will not neglect his studies or home duties. He is 14 and just about the age where I sat down behind my first snare drum. The black and white Kodak snapshot is on my fridge. I am certainly not a whole lot older, maybe a year at most. But I had practiced with table knives on kitchen chairs for a couple of years beforehand.

I can’t help but remember how I craved a real set of drums and almost talked my dad into signing a contract at Winnipeg Music for a snazzy set of cherry red Sonar drums. Almost!

My dad had another idea and that was to altogether avoid the pain of monthly payments. He brought home a drinking buddy from the Brooklands Hotel one night who told me that he had a set of Ludwig drums (Ringo’s brand) stored at his brother’s place in New York and that he was going to get them for me.

I waited for months and he kept stalling but still promising and eventually the sad realization dawned that I would never see these drums.

Kadir was depressed this Christmas because he didn’t get the game he asked for. If Kadir wants to be a guitar hero, better a taste of the real thing than the computer game version!