Charlie Waller was a very special friend of my family and me.
I own any number of guitars, but when I or others speak of "my" guitar, it is a 1967 Martin D-35. Charlie had bought it, thinking someday to give it to his sone, Randy. Well, Randy went off in other musical directions . . . where the 35 wouldn't be an asset. Mom bought it from Charlie to present to me as my high-school graduation gift back in 1973.
It wqas some years later, the year after Charlie died, that I bumped into Randy. I guess he knew about the guitar and it still grated on him, and he tried to buy it back. It was a point of pride with him to get it back. In my case it was the guitar my mother gave me and I'd been playing for better than thirty years -- for many of those years it was my only guitar. Most of the few other guitars I now own are subject to trade or sale. That one will be in its case under my bed when I die. No sale, Randy.
Charlie was a remarkable musician. He had fingers like fence posts, but they were as nimble on the neck of a guitar as any. Hours, I spent sitting with him, picking, and could never grasp how his left hand could move so calmly around the frets, and I'd still be scrambling to try to duplicate what he'd done. A natural talent.
He and his wife, Sachiko, drove up to Arlilngton from Gordonsville up to visit with us and look in on my mom, only a couple df days before she passed.
And they drove back for the funeral early the next week. We'd had a friend put together a CD of the family's favorite bluegrass Gospel to be played as background music before the service. Our family's relationship with Charlie was such that we had to sneak a love song of his into it.
I first heard of his passing at the office, in an online headline. That sent me scrambling and, by then NPR had a tribute that I could get to online. I had to pause it, and close my office door to listen to the rest. The narrator with the story, and Charlie's voice, like a bell singing underneath.
I closed the door and wept.
He had his flaws, as do we all, but a genuinely good man who left a gift of music to the world.
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